Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-10-11

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 6.5)

The bar chart illustrates the percentages of residents in five Australian cities who bought fresh or instant coffee or visited a cafe for coffee or tea in the previous four weeks.

Overall, visiting cafe was the the most popular activity in most cities, while buying fresh coffee was the least common. Additionally instant coffee was more popular than fresh coffee across all five cities.

Regarding cafe visits Melbourne and Hobart had the highest figures, at approximately 63% and 62%, followed by Sydney at 61%. Brisbane accounted for around 56% and Adelaide had the lowest percentage, at around 49%. For Instant coffee Hobart and Brisbane recorded the highest proportion at about 63% and 53%. The figures for Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney was approximately 50%, 48% and 46% .

As for fresh coffee purchases, Sydney holds the highest proportions, at around 43%, closely followed by Melbourne 42%. Hobart represented 38% of fresh coffee bought, whereas Adelaide and Brisbane had the lowest figures, at about 35% each.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response covers the chart’s three activities and gives a clear overview: café visits are generally the most common, while fresh coffee purchases are lower, and instant coffee exceeds fresh coffee in every city. Most comparisons are accurately reported, including the café figures and the low fresh-coffee percentages in Brisbane and Adelaide. However, there is a notable data error: Hobart’s instant-coffee figure is about 55%, not 63%; 63% is its café figure. The overview also says café visits lead in “most” cities, although they are highest in all five. These points keep the summary from being fully precise. To strengthen it, check each series carefully and make the overview’s generalisations match the complete data.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The response is organised into a clear introduction, overview, and two detail paragraphs. The grouping by café visits, instant coffee, and fresh coffee makes the information easy to follow, and signposts such as “Regarding” and “As for” help indicate shifts in focus. This provides a coherent overall progression. Some linking is slightly mechanical, however, and the detail paragraphs could compare cities and categories more directly rather than presenting a sequence of figures. For example, the instant-coffee sentence lists three cities without a clear comparison, while the overview’s “most cities” does not align with the later data showing café visits lead everywhere. More precise referencing and a few explicit contrasts would make cohesion more flexible.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.5

The vocabulary is adequate for describing a bar chart, with useful terms such as “percentages,” “recorded,” “proportion,” and “figures.” The writer also varies expressions for reporting data, which helps avoid excessive repetition. Some choices are imprecise or awkward, though: “visiting cafe” would be more natural as “visiting a café,” and “Hobart represented 38% of fresh coffee bought” does not clearly describe the share of residents who bought it. “Holds” is also less suitable for a past-period survey than “recorded.” These do not prevent understanding, but they limit precision and naturalness. Aim for accurate collocations such as “the proportion of residents who purchased fresh coffee” and consistent, chart-appropriate reporting language.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

There is a mix of simple and more developed sentence forms, including the overview’s contrast between activities and the longer comparisons in the detail paragraphs. Most information remains clear, but some grammatical errors are noticeable. Examples include “visiting cafe was the the most popular,” which has a repeated article and needs an article before “café,” and “The figures … was,” where the plural subject requires “were.” Tense use also shifts from past reporting to “Sydney holds,” although the survey concerns the previous four weeks. Punctuation and spacing around some city names and percentages could be more controlled. Proofreading for articles, agreement, and consistent past tense would improve accuracy while preserving the current range.

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