Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-10-05

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)

This chart illustrates the Coffee and tea buying and drinking habits about individual's of five Australian cities such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Hobart with the help of a survey.

Overall, it is evident that cafe for coffee or tea was the most popular activity in most of the cities, while buying fresh coffee was generally the leat common choice. Melbourne recorded the highest percentage of cafe visitors, whereas Brisbane had the lowest proportion of people buying fresh coffee.

In Sydney, approximately 44% of people bought fresh coffee, 46% purchase instant coffee while 62% residents went to cafe which shows higher rate. In Brisbane, the lowest proportion bought fresh coffee. In contrast, percentage of people who bought instant coffee and went to cafe indicated less difference that was 53% and 55%.

On the other hand, In adelaid, around 34% bought fresh coffee, while, 50% of people prefer instant coffee and appross same went to cafe.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.5
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.5
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.5
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response presents an overview with some main features, such as identifying that café visits were generally the most popular activity and mentioning Melbourne and Brisbane as extremes. However, the data coverage is incomplete and unbalanced. While Sydney and Brisbane are mentioned in the body paragraphs, the specific figures for Melbourne and Hobart are largely omitted from the detailed descriptions. Furthermore, some of the data reported lacks precision or comparison, leading to an under-developed overview of the chart's overall trends. To reach a higher band, all five cities should have their key data points integrated more systematically to provide a fully supported summary of the visual data.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The text presents a basic overall arrangement, dividing the response into an introduction, an overview, and separate body paragraphs for different cities. However, the progression lacks clarity and flow in places. The referencing is sometimes unclear, and transitions between sentences feel mechanical or abrupt, particularly in the transition from the general overview to specific city details. Paragraphing is attempted, but the final body paragraph is fragmented and abruptly ends without a comprehensive conclusion for all cities. Improving logical connectors and ensuring a smoother flow of ideas between sentences and paragraphs would significantly strengthen the overall structure.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is minimally adequate for the task, with clear attempts to use less common items such as 'proportion', 'residents', and 'activity'. However, there are noticeable lexical inaccuracies and spelling errors throughout the text, including 'leat' instead of 'least', 'purchase' instead of 'purchased', 'appross' instead of 'approximately', and 'adelaid' instead of 'Adelaide'. Collocations are occasionally awkward, such as 'which shows higher rate'. To achieve a higher score, you need to use a wider range of vocabulary with greater precision, ensuring correct word forms, word choices, and accurate spelling.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The response displays a limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on simple sentences and basic compound forms. Attempts at complex sentences are frequently faulty, leading to awkward phrasing and grammatical errors. There are issues with tense consistency, articles, and prepositions, such as 'habits about individual's of five Australian cities' and 'went to cafe' missing the necessary article. Punctuation errors also occur, such as comma splices and missing capitalization for proper nouns like 'adelaid'. To move up, you should aim to incorporate a greater variety of complex grammatical structures while maintaining better control over basic agreement and punctuation.

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

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