Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-09-29
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 5.0)
The chart illustrates the percentage of people portraying the habit of buying and drinking coffee and tea in five cities in Australia. The chart is divided into five parts horizontally according to the cities and each part is subdivided into three bars according to what type of coffee was bought.
Overall, the chart gives us a survey of the last four weeks' consumption of coffee. It shows us that in most of the cities, expect Adelaide, the percentage of city residents who went to a cafe for coffee or tea was higher.
In Adelaide only less than 50 percent people went to cafe for coffee. There was a slight difference in the percentage of people who bought fresh coffee in Sydney and Melbourne,and the amount was over 40 percent. In case, Brisbane and Adelaide, the number is less than 35%. The percentage of people who bought instant coffee was always higher than the percentage of people who bought fresh coffee.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0
The student attempts to address the prompt by describing the coffee and tea habits across five Australian cities, but the task achievement is limited. While an overall trend is identified (cafe visits being generally higher except in Adelaide), the response lacks a fully developed overview and fails to clearly present and compare key data points across all three categories. There are also factual inaccuracies in the data reporting; for instance, the student states that the percentage of people who bought instant coffee was always higher than those who bought fresh coffee, which is incorrect for Sydney (44% fresh vs 45.5% instant is close, but Hobart is 38.5% fresh vs 54.5% instant; however, in Sydney and Melbourne, fresh coffee figures are quite comparable to instant, and the claim of 'always higher' is a misgeneralisation). Furthermore, key figures like Melbourne and Hobart cafe percentages (63.5% and 63%) are omitted, leading to an under-developed summary.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0
The response is arranged into paragraphs, but the overall logical progression is weak. The introduction attempts to describe the chart layout rather than effectively paraphrasing the prompt's core meaning. Cohesive devices are minimal and sometimes inaccurate or awkward, such as 'In case, Brisbane and Adelaide, the number is less than 35%.' Paragraphing is attempted with a division between the overview and body details, but the body paragraph structure is disjointed, lumping various cities together without a clear organizing principle. Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as shifting between 'people' and 'number' without clear antecedents. Overall arrangement provides some coherence, but cohesion is mechanical and faulty.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.0
The vocabulary used is generally adequate for basic communication, but lacks the precision and range expected for a higher band. The student uses repetitive phrases like 'percentage of people' and 'bought coffee'. There are noticeable lexical errors and awkward collocations, such as 'people portraying the habit of' instead of 'people exhibiting habits' or 'people's habits', and 'expect Adelaide' instead of 'except Adelaide'. Attempts to use less common vocabulary are limited, and basic spelling/word-choice errors appear throughout the text. However, the meaning is mostly decipherable despite these limitations.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0
The student demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as 'It shows us that in most of the cities... the percentage of city residents who went to a cafe for coffee or tea was higher.' However, grammatical accuracy is inconsistent. There are several structural errors and missing articles or prepositions, such as 'In Adelaide only less than 50 percent people went to cafe for coffee' (missing article 'a' before cafe and awkward word order), and 'In case, Brisbane and Adelaide, the number is less than 35%.' Punctuation errors, such as missing spaces after commas (e.g., 'Melbourne,and'), also detract from the quality. These errors require some effort from the reader to parse, placing the grammar firmly in the band 5 range.
See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.
Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.