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 what Anthropology graduates from one university did after finishing their undergraduate degree course. The table shows the salaries of the anthropologists in work after five years.

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

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The pie chart and table respectively demonstrate the choice of career post graduation and how much income they are making.

Overall, In the pie chart, more than 50 percent of the graduates chose to work full-time while the lowest percentage pursue part time work with postgrad studies. one the other hand, the table shows that 50 percent of the people working in the government are making more than 100 thousand dollars contrary to private companies at 20 percent less.

destination of graduates in terms of career choices. While full time work was the most dominant path at 52%, part time work was the second but was far from the 1st figure at interestingly low 15 percent. Not so far from that shows that a subset is also unemployed at just above 10% and the rest (full-time postgrad study, part-time work with postgrad study and not known) all below 10 percent at 8%, 5% and 8% respectively.

Government employers tend to be the most to make high end salaries compared to the other two sectors. Freelancers and government sector both have the same percentage at 5% and 15% for the ranges (25,000-49,999 and 50,000,74,999)$ while private companies increase from 10% to 35%. Finally, Freelancers score at 40% for 75,000 and 100,000+ while the private companies have moderate below 30% for that range and Government sector reaching the highest percentage of all at 50%.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by reporting data from both the pie chart and the table, selecting key features such as the dominant full-time employment rate at 52% and the high salary bracket for government workers at 50%. However, some ideas are under-developed or lack clarity, and there is a tendency to rush through comparisons. For instance, the discussion of the table data in the fourth paragraph becomes muddled with percentages and ranges, such as 'Freelancers and government sector both have the same percentage at 5% and 15%', which does not accurately reflect the provided figures. The overview provided in the second paragraph touches upon main trends, but the overall presentation lacks a fully sustained and clear focus on all salient comparisons across the two visual datasets.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The response shows some organization with an attempted overview and separate paragraphs for different features, but there is no clear overall progression. The relationship between paragraphs is sometimes disjointed, and referencing is occasionally unclear, such as starting the third paragraph abruptly with 'destination of graduates in terms of career choices' without a proper introductory link. Cohesive devices are used mechanically or inadequately, and paragraphing is faulty, with body paragraphs split arbitrarily. Furthermore, the absence of proper capitalisation at the beginning of sentences and improper punctuation disrupt the flow and logical development of ideas throughout the response.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

An adequate range of vocabulary is attempted for the task, including terms like 'demonstrate', 'dominant path', 'subset', and 'employers'. However, there are noticeable inaccuracies in word choice and collocation, such as 'how much income they are making' instead of 'their salary distribution', and 'tend to be the most to make high end salaries'. There are also minor lexical slips and awkward phrasings like 'at interestingly low 15 percent' and 'moderate below 30%'. These errors do not completely impede communication, but they restrict the response from achieving a higher level of lexical precision and stylistic fluency.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response exhibits a limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on simple sentences and basic complex forms. Attempts at more complex structures are often faulty, leading to frequent grammatical and punctuation errors that can cause some difficulty for the reader. There are issues with article usage, prepositions, and agreement, such as 'one the other hand', missing capital letters at the start of sentences ('Overall, In...', 'one the other hand', 'destination of graduates'), and confusing punctuation around currency ranges like '(25,000-49,999 and 50,000,74,999)$'. While the meaning can generally be discerned, the frequency of basic mechanical and structural errors keeps the grammatical control at a lower level.

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

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