Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-10-08

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 presented bar chart presents trends in percentage of people in the 5 different cities buying coffee and tea for themselves through a survey.

Overall, people mostly went to a cafe for coffee or tea in each city in last 4 weeks. Meanwhile, proportion of people buying fresh coffee from stores is least served in all 5 cities.

Drinking, coffee or tea at cafe is accounted highest in each of the cities, where in Melbourne has significant percent of people like to go to cafe to buy coffee or tea, around 63%. following Hobart and Sydney where 62% and 61%, respectively, people went to cafe's, in contrast, Adelaide was the only city where buying instant coffee stated largest in proportion.

However, rest in all cities the proportion of people buying fresh coffee, where Brisbane shows the lowest percentage of people around 33%, the city where highest fresh coffee is bought at around 43%.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You identify the main pattern that café visits were generally the most popular activity and that fresh coffee purchases were comparatively low, and you include several relevant figures. However, the overview is not fully accurate: fresh coffee was not the least popular activity in every city, since in Sydney its figure was slightly below café visits but above instant coffee? More importantly, in Adelaide instant coffee was highest, while café visits were lower. Your statement that café visits were highest “in each” city therefore conflicts with this exception. The comparison of fresh coffee is also unclear: Brisbane was lowest, but Sydney was highest at about 44%, not the city described as “around 43%” without naming it. Select and report the key comparisons more precisely, including the Adelaide exception.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction, an overview, and further details, so the reader can identify the broad subject and some comparisons. However, progression is uneven and the final two paragraphs do not develop the information in a clear sequence. For example, “Drinking, coffee or tea at cafe is accounted highest” is followed by a long, awkward comparison, while “However, rest in all cities” does not clearly connect to the preceding point. Linking words such as “Meanwhile,” “following,” and “However” are used, but some do not express the relationship accurately. Organise the body around clear comparisons—café visits, instant coffee, then fresh coffee—and use simpler, more precise transitions and references.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You use a reasonable range of task-related vocabulary, including “proportion,” “percentage,” “survey,” and “in contrast,” and the reader can generally understand the intended comparisons. There are also attempts at more formal phrasing, such as “significant percent” and “proportion … largest,” but some combinations are unnatural or imprecise. “Least served” does not describe the lowest purchase figure, and “buying coffee and tea for themselves” misrepresents the chart, which reports separate coffee purchases and café visits for coffee or tea. “Cafe’s” is also an incorrect form for the plural. Aim for accurate collocations such as “the lowest proportion bought fresh coffee” and “the highest share visited a café”; this would make your adequate vocabulary more precise.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including an overview beginning “Overall” and a comparison introduced by “in contrast.” However, control is inconsistent, and several sentences contain errors that make the relationships difficult to follow. For example, “Drinking, coffee or tea at cafe is accounted highest” has faulty sentence structure, while “where in Melbourne has significant percent” does not form a grammatical clause. There are also problems with articles, agreement, and sentence boundaries, as in “in last 4 weeks” and the lower-case “following” after a full stop. Practise building complete subject–verb clauses and checking articles and punctuation. Shorter, accurate comparisons would help you express the data more clearly while retaining some complex structures.

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

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