Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-10-06
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 gives information of the survey about Australian's coffee and tea buying and drinking habits in five cities of Australia over the last 4 weeks.
Overall, majority of the citizen visited the cafe, whereas fresh coffee was
least bought in all five cities. The instant coffee remained in the middle.
The percentages of city residents visited cafe Ranges from around 46% to 65% in Adelaide and Melbourne respectively. Minority of the residents bought the fresh coffee, highest in Sydney close to 46% and lowest is around 34% in Brisbane.
The figure of instant coffee was in between fresh coffee and visited cafe. It surpassed in-house coffee and tea in Adelaide with 1% of margin. The city that purchased the lowest was Sydney followed by Melbourne. The highest sales of instant coffee was in Hobart, around 54% residents have bought it. while the second was Brisbane, around 52% residents had purchased.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5
The response addresses the task partially, covering some of the main features and making basic comparisons, but it falls short of the 150-word minimum requirement, clocking in at 143 words. An overview is present, noting that visiting cafes was most popular and fresh coffee was least bought overall, which satisfies the basic requirement for a summary. However, some data points are inaccurate or poorly supported—for instance, stating that residents visited cafes starting from 'around 46%' when Adelaide was actually nearly 50% and mentioning that Sydney's fresh coffee was 'close to 46%' when the chart shows 44%. Ideas are limited and under-developed, and the lack of sufficient word count pulls the score down into the partial-achievement category.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5
The response shows some logical organisation with a basic introduction, an overview paragraph, and two body paragraphs covering the categories of data. However, there is no clear overall progression and cohesive devices are repetitive or inadequately used. For example, paragraphs start abruptly with phrases like 'The percentages of city residents...' and 'The figure of instant coffee...', without smooth transitions connecting the ideas. Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as 'It surpassed in-house coffee', where the pronoun reference is somewhat confusing given the preceding context. Paragraphing is attempted, but the internal flow within paragraphs remains mechanical and lacks sophisticated linking words.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The vocabulary used is limited but minimally adequate to convey the basic trends in the chart. The writer attempts some less common vocabulary such as 'surpassed', 'proportion', and 'majority', but struggles with appropriate word choice and collocations, writing phrases like 'citizen visited the cafe' instead of 'residents visited cafes'. There are also minor lexical inaccuracies and awkward phrasing, such as 'in-house coffee' when referring to instant or fresh retail coffee categories. Spelling is generally acceptable, but the overall range of vocabulary is constrained, and word choices occasionally cause minor stumbling blocks for the reader.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0
The text demonstrates a limited range of grammatical structures, relying mostly on simple sentences alongside a few clumsy attempts at complex forms. Frequent errors are present throughout the text, including missing plural forms ('percentage of city residents visited cafe'), incorrect prepositions ('in 1% of margin' instead of 'by a 1% margin'), and awkward verb tense usage ('has bought it' instead of 'bought it'). Punctuation and article usage are also inconsistent ('the majority of the citizen', 'highest sales of instant coffee was'). These frequent errors require the reader to occasionally puzzle over the meaning, placing the grammatical control firmly at this level.
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.