Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-09-17

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The chart below shows the results of a survey about people’s coffee and tea buying and drinking habits in five Australian cities.

Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Student answer (Band 6.5)

The bar chart illustrates the results of a survey about people's drinking habits such as coffee and tea buying across five different cities in Australia.

Overall, people across all cities had almost the highest percentage of going to a cafe for coffee or tea in recent four weeks. Conversely, the proportion of people bought fresh coffee had the least proportion.

Visiting a cafe was the dominant activity in Sydney, Melbourne, and Hobart, with Melbourne recording the highest proportion at around 63%, closely followed by Hobart at nearly 63% and Sydney at just over 61%. In Brisbane, cafe visits were slightly lower at around 55%. Adelaide was the only city where cafe visits (just under 50%) were marginally surpassed by buying instant coffee, which reached exactly 50%. Hobart had the highest proportion of instant coffee buyers at roughly 54%, while Brisbane followed at nearly 53%.

Buying fresh coffee recorded the lowest percentages in all five cities. Sydney had the highest percentage of residents purchasing fresh coffee at nearly 44%, with Melbourne just behind at around 42%. In contrast, Hobart, Brisbane and Adelaide saw significantly lower figures, with Hobart at under 39%, and both Brisbane and Adelaide recording the lowest proportions at just under 35%.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 7.0

The student covers all parts of the task well, providing an overview and making relevant comparisons across the five Australian cities. The data cited is accurate and aligns closely with the provided chart, such as noting Melbourne's café visits at around 63% and identifying Adelaide as the only city where instant coffee surpassed café visits. An overview is present in the second paragraph, capturing the broader trends that café visits were generally the most popular activity and fresh coffee buying the least. The ideas are well-selected and supported with specific percentages, demonstrating a strong grasp of the visual data. Minor generalisations do not detract from the overall quality, fulfilling Band 7 and approaching Band 8 requirements nicely.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The response exhibits a clear logical organisation and progression throughout. The introduction paraphrases the prompt effectively, followed by a clear overview paragraph. Body paragraphs are logically grouped by activity or comparison, moving from café visits to instant coffee and finally fresh coffee buying. Cohesive devices are used reasonably well to guide the reader through the data, such as 'Conversely', 'In contrast', and 'while'. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas and categories. Although cohesion is sometimes slightly mechanical, the overall structure flows smoothly and supports readability, meeting the criteria for a solid Band 7.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The student demonstrates an adequate to good range of vocabulary suited to a Task 1 report, using terms such as 'proportion', 'dominant activity', 'marginally surpassed', and 'significantly lower'. There are attempts to use less common lexical items with general success. However, there are a few minor inaccuracies and awkward phrasings, such as 'people across all cities had almost the highest percentage of going to a cafe' and the grammatical error 'the proportion of people bought fresh coffee' (instead of 'who bought'). Despite these minor flaws, communication is never impeded, and the lexical range is sufficient for a Band 6.5 or 7.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The student employs a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, incorporating relative clauses and comparative forms (e.g., 'Adelaide was the only city where cafe visits... were marginally surpassed by buying instant coffee'). There are some noticeable grammatical errors, notably the omission of relative pronouns ('the proportion of people bought fresh coffee' instead of 'who bought') and occasional awkward preposition use ('in recent four weeks' instead of 'in the recent four weeks'). However, the majority of sentences are clear and understandable, and these errors do not impede communication. This performance aligns well with the Band 6.5 descriptors.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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