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 graph compares the percentages of coffee and tea buying and drinking across five Australian cities in last 4 weeks.

Overall, it is clear that people preferred to visit a cafe for coffee or tea in all cities except in Adelaide, while buying fresh coffee was consistently the least popular option. Bought instant coffee was always the second choice across all cities except in Adelaide, which ranked first.

Citizens in Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney recoreded the highest percentage for visiting a cafe for coffee or tea in last 4 weeks, with more than 60% of people did this activity in each cities. In Brisbane, this figure represented just over 55% of the total. In contrast, there was just under 50% of people in Adelaide. Baying instant coffee was consistently the second pereferable option in Hobart, Melbourne and Sydney, at approximately 54%, 47%, and 43 respectively, while the proprtion for Brisbane was about 53%. However, in Adelaide, this activity was the most common among others, at 50%.

In contrast, baying fresh coffe was consistently the least attracting option. In Sydney and Melbourne, there were around 43% in each cities did this activity, falling to around 37 in Habart, and just under 35% in Adelaide and Brisbane.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The student successfully addresses all parts of the task by presenting an overview and reporting the main features of the chart. The key trends—such as the popularity of visiting cafes across most cities and fresh coffee being the least popular overall—are clearly identified. Comparisons are made between cities, particularly regarding Adelaide's contrasting trends in instant coffee and cafe visits. However, there are some minor data inaccuracies and misreadings compared to the ground truth data. For instance, the student states that instant coffee in Hobart was approximately 54% when the chart shows around 54.5%, but more noticeably, the figures reported for fresh coffee in Sydney, Melbourne, and Hobart contain some inaccuracies, and there are occasional typos in data reporting (e.g., "at approximately 54%, 47%, and 43 respectively" for cities where the values were different). Despite these minor discrepancies, the overall response provides a clear summary and covers all three categories well, earning a Band 6.5.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The response is organized into four distinct paragraphs, featuring an introductory sentence, an overview paragraph, and two body paragraphs detailing specific data points. There is a clear logical progression from general trends to specific city-by-city breakdowns. Cohesive devices such as "Overall", "In contrast", and "However" are used to signal shifts between ideas and categories. However, paragraphing and referencing occasionally feel slightly mechanical, and the flow is disrupted by recurring grammatical and lexical errors in the transition sentences. Overall arrangement is coherent, satisfying the requirements for a Band 6.0.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for a Task 1 response, employing terms such as "percentages", "consistently", "proportion", and "figure". There are, however, several noticeable spelling and word-choice errors that detract from the quality, including "recoreded" instead of recorded, "Baying" instead of Buying, "pereferable" instead of preferable, "proprtion" instead of proportion, and "attracting" instead of attractive. While these errors do not severely impede communication, the repeated spelling mistakes and imprecise lexical choices prevent the response from achieving a higher band, placing it firmly at Band 5.5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, using subordinate clauses introduced by "while", "as", and "with". However, grammatical accuracy is inconsistent. There are frequent errors in verb forms, prepositions, and clause structures, such as "with more than 60% of people did this activity in each cities" (incorrect verb tense and pluralization), "there was just under 50% of people in Adelaide" (awkward existential construction), and missing numbers in "at approximately 54%, 47%, and 43 respectively". Punctuation is generally acceptable, but grammatical slips are frequent enough to cause occasional difficulty for the reader, aligning with Band 5.5.

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

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