Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-10-01

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 provided chart illustrates the result of the survey of the Australian residents showing their coffee and tea purchasing and consuming habits in the last 4 weeks.

Overall, the chart shows the drinking and buying habits of residents in six different cities of Australia. The people who prefers both tea and coffee occupied the largest positions in the bar chart. The number of resident who bought fresh coffee among all cities were the lowest. However, approximately half of the residents bought instant coffee and their number stayed relatively stable throughout the weeks.

Firstly, the majority of the residents went to a cafe for either tea or coffee.

The Melbourne residents occupied the highest position with around 64 percent. The Hobart residents occupied the second highest with 63 percent, whereas, people in the Adelaide who preferred both occupied the lowest position in the chart with around 49 percent.

Secondly, people who bought instant coffee in last 4 weeks remained almost the same in all cities with the percentage around 45 to 55. However, residents who bought fresh coffee occupied mostly the lowest positions in the chart with the least percent of 34% in Brisbane.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response partially addresses the prompt by attempting to summarise the main features of the chart, such as identifying general trends in instant versus fresh coffee and cafe visits. However, there are notable inaccuracies and confusions in data reporting, such as stating there are six cities instead of five, and claiming that residents in Adelaide occupied the lowest position for preferring both tea and coffee when the data relates to cafe visits. Furthermore, some information is vague, such as 'throughout the weeks,' which misinterprets the time frame of a four-week survey. To reach a higher level, the response needs to select and report data more accurately, avoiding generalisations that misrepresent the chart figures, and present a clearer overview without factual discrepancies.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The text demonstrates a basic attempt at organisation with the use of transition markers like 'Firstly' and 'Secondly,' and an introductory overview paragraph. However, the overall progression lacks clarity and cohesion is at times mechanical or faulty. For instance, referencing is occasionally unclear, such as the ambiguous pronoun use in 'their number' and the misidentification of cities and categories. Paragraphing is present, but the logical flow between ideas is disrupted by inaccurate reporting of the visual data. Improving this criterion requires ensuring that cohesive devices are used more naturally to link well-sequenced ideas and that referencing remains consistently clear throughout.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is minimally adequate for the task, demonstrating an attempt to discuss survey results using terms like 'purchasing and consuming habits,' 'percentage,' and 'occupied.' However, there are noticeable lexical inaccuracies and awkward phrasing, such as 'the number of resident who bought fresh coffee among all cities were the lowest' (agreement issues aside, 'number' is incorrectly paired with a superlative pattern) and referring to cities occupying 'positions' in terms of percentages rather than data points. Spelling is generally acceptable, but word choice lacks precision. To improve, the writer should use a wider and more precise range of vocabulary related to data trends and ensure correct collocations.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but control is inconsistent, resulting in frequent errors that occasionally cause confusion. There are several issues with subject-verb agreement, such as 'The people who prefers' and 'The number of resident... were,' as well as article errors like 'in the Adelaide' and missing plurals in 'resident.' Additionally, prepositional and structural patterns within complex sentences are sometimes faulty. To move to a higher band, the writer needs to increase the proportion of error-free sentences by paying closer attention to basic grammatical rules, subject-verb concord, and article usage.

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

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