Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-11-03

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The graph below shows the number of tourists visiting a particular Caribbean island between 2010 and 2017.

Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

Student answer (Band 4.5)

The graph illustrates the number of tourists visiting a particular Caribbean island between 2010 and 2017, it shows the number of visitors staying on cruise ships, on island, and total number of them.

Overall, the number total visitors are much higher. Visitors living on island are little bit low as compare to visitor staying on cruise ships. In 2017, total visitors was 3.5 million while 2 million staying on cruise ships and 1.5 million staying on island.

Initally in 2010,

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0

You identify the chart’s subject and mention the three categories, and the 2017 figures you give—3.5 million in total, including 2 million cruise-ship visitors and 1.5 million staying on the island—match the data. However, the response is far too brief to summarise the main trends: it gives no meaningful account of changes across 2010–2016, and the final line, “Initially in 2010,” is unfinished. The overview is also unclear and partly inaccurate: “total visitors are much higher” does not explain the overall rise, while island-staying visitors were not consistently lower than cruise-ship visitors. The response contains 67 words, 83 short of the 150-word minimum; 13 words copied from the prompt were not counted. Develop a clear overview and report key changes across the period.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.0

There is a basic attempt to organise the response: an opening sentence introduces the graph, followed by a short overview and a reference to the final year. This gives the reader some sense of the intended structure. However, the ideas do not progress into a complete summary, and the last paragraph begins “Initially in 2010,” but stops before giving any information. The overview also combines several comparisons without making their relationship clear. Use complete paragraphs to present an overview first, then describe the main trends in chronological order, grouping related figures where useful. Linking expressions such as “Meanwhile” or “By contrast” could clarify comparisons, but the priority is to complete and logically connect each point.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use relevant basic vocabulary, including “graph,” “number of tourists,” “visitors,” and “million,” so the topic is generally understandable. The range is limited, however, and several phrases are inaccurate or awkward: “number total visitors,” “visitors living on island,” and “as compare to visitor staying on cruise ships.” “Initially” is also misspelled as “Initally.” These choices make parts of the summary less clear and less natural. Practise accurate chart language such as “the total number of visitors,” “tourists staying on the island,” and “compared with.” A wider set of trend verbs—such as “rose,” “remained stable,” and “fluctuated”—would help you describe the data more precisely without repeating “visitors” in every sentence.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.5

The response attempts both a longer introductory sentence and shorter statements, but the range of sentence structures is very limited, and errors occur frequently. The opening joins two independent clauses with only a comma: “The graph illustrates … between 2010 and 2017, it shows …”; use a full stop or a conjunction. There are also agreement and article problems in “the number total visitors are” and “total visitors was,” and the comparison “as compare to” is not grammatically formed. The fragment “Initially in 2010,” is incomplete. These errors sometimes make the intended relationships difficult to follow. Build accurate simple sentences first, then practise combining them with conjunctions, while checking subject–verb agreement and completing every sentence.

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

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