Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-09-18

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 5.5)

The bar chart illustrates the results of a survey about resident's coffee and tea buying and drinking habits in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Hobart. Units are measured in percentage.

Overall, it is clear that people habit of buying fresh coffee in last 4 weeks is lower in all five cities. While, people habit of going to a cafe for coffee or tea in the last 4 weeks is higher in four cities except Adelaide. However, people coffee and tea buying and drinking habits had some fluctuations in all five cities.

In Sydney, people going to a cafe for coffee or tea in the last 4 weeks is above 60% which is highest in Sydney, while people habit of buying fresh coffee in the last 4 weeks is below 45% which is lowest in Sydney. Similarly, people habit of buying instant coffee in the last 4 weeks in Sydney is above 45%. Above 60% of people went to a cafe for coffee or tea in the last 4 weeks in Melbourne. While above 40% of people bought fresh coffee in the last 4 weeks, which is lowest in Melbourne, and around 46% of people bought instant coffee in the last 4 weeks. In Brisbane, 56% of people went to a cafe for coffee or tea in the last 4 weeks. While 34% of people's bought fresh coffee in the last 4 weeks which is the lowest in the figure and above 50% of people bought instant coffee in the last 4 weeks.

On the other hand, 49% of people went to a cafe for coffee or tea in the last 4 weeks in Adelaide, while 34% of people bought fresh coffee in the last 4 weeks in Adelaide, matching Brisbane and 50% of people bought instant coffee in the last 4 weeks in Adelaide. In Hobart, around 63% of people went to a cafe for coffee or tea in the last 4 weeks, while below 40% of people bought fresh coffee in the last 4 weeks and 54% of people bought instant coffee in the last 4 weeks which is highest among all the five cities.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The student successfully covers all parts of the task by reporting the main features of coffee and tea habits across the five Australian cities. An overview is attempted, noting general trends such as the lower frequency of fresh coffee purchases and the prevalence of café visits. Key data points and comparisons are included, such as highlighting that Adelaide had the lowest café visitation rate at around 49.5% and Hobart recorded the highest instant coffee consumption at approximately 54.5%. However, the overview lacks precision and the reporting tends to list data point by point rather than fully synthesising the trends into higher-level comparisons. The inclusion of minor grammatical errors in data interpretation (e.g., 'people habit of buying') slightly detracts from clarity, but the core information required by the prompt is delivered.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The response is arranged logically into four paragraphs, comprising an introduction, an overview, and two body paragraphs dividing the cities. Cohesive devices are used, such as 'Overall', 'While', 'Similarly', and 'On the other hand', to guide the reader through the data. However, referencing and transitions are sometimes mechanical or awkwardly structured, as seen in repetitive sentence starters like 'people habit of...' and disjointed contrast markers ('While, people habit...'). Paragraphing is functional, but the progression within paragraphs feels somewhat formulaic and repetitive, leaning heavily on listing individual city statistics rather than smoothly flowing comparisons. Overall organisation is coherent, but cohesion requires more natural flexibility.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary is adequate for the task, successfully incorporating topic-specific terms like 'survey', 'resident', 'percentage', 'fluctuations', and the categories provided in the chart. There are attempts to use less common vocabulary, but word choice and collocation are frequently awkward or inaccurate, such as 'people habit of buying' instead of 'residents' habits of purchasing' or 'people's bought fresh coffee'. Spelling is generally correct, but grammatical word-form errors (e.g., noun/adjective confusion) limit precision. The lexical range is sufficient to communicate the main points, but lacks the flexibility and stylistic awareness required for higher bands.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response features a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, attempting relative clauses and participial phrases (e.g., 'which is highest in Sydney'). However, grammatical accuracy is inconsistent. There are frequent errors in verb forms, possessives, and punctuation, such as missing apostrophes ('resident's' instead of 'residents''), awkward tense/gerund usage ('people going to a cafe... is above 60%'), and incorrect relative clause links ('While 34% of people's bought fresh coffee'). While these errors do not completely impede communication, they occur regularly throughout the text, preventing the response from reaching a higher band score where error-free sentences should dominate.

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