Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-27

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The charts below show the changes in ownership of electrical appliances and amount of time spent doing housework in households in one country between 1920 and 2019.

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

Percentage of households with electrical appliances (1920-2019)

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The line charts illustrate the difference in ownership of electronics and time utilized in house chores in a country from year 1920 to 2019,

The home appliances gained popularity and made their way into every household over time. However, on the other hand hours per week doing the housework declined continously.

The amount of refrigerators was negligible in 1920 nevertheless, vaccum cleaner and washing machine were still being used by 30% and 40% of houses, respectively. Over next 20 years, the percentage increased considerably 50% for vaccum cleaners and 60% for washing machines. However, refrigerators' ownership increased drastically to about 55%. In coming half the century refrigerators and vaccum cleaners became essential to almost every hosehold resulting in 100% of houses in 2000 and 2019. However, figures for washing machines kept fluctuating and were recorded just above 70% in 2019.

Increasing trend of home appliances resulted in reducing houseworking hours. People spent 50% of their time doing the house chores in 1920 but these reduced continously to approximately 10% in 2019.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The student covers all parts of the task by reporting the main features of both charts and making relevant comparisons. The overview is partially present in the second paragraph, capturing the inverse relationship between appliance ownership and housework hours. Key data points are accurately identified, such as the 1920 figures and the 100% saturation for refrigerators and vacuum cleaners by 2000 and 2019. However, there are minor numerical inaccuracies in the final paragraph, where the student states that people spent '50% of their time' in 1920 (referring to 50 hours) and 'approximately 10%' in 2019 (referring to 11 hours), conflating percentages with hours. Despite this minor misrepresentation, the overall response addresses the prompt effectively.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response is organized into four paragraphs, following a logical progression from introduction to overview and specific body details. Cohesive devices are used throughout, such as 'However', 'on the other hand', and 'nevertheless', although some transitions are slightly mechanical or awkwardly placed, such as 'However, on the other hand'. Paragraphing is utilized adequately to separate different ideas, but paragraph breaks are placed after a single sentence for the overview, which disrupts the flow. Referencing is generally clear, though occasional punctuation errors affect readability.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student attempts a range of vocabulary suitable for an academic task, using terms like 'negligible', 'drastically', 'fluctuating', and 'saturation'. However, there are notable spelling errors ('vaccum' instead of vacuum, 'hosehold' instead of household, 'continously' instead of continuously) and occasional awkward word choices, such as 'amount of refrigerators' instead of 'percentage of households with refrigerators' or 'houseworking hours' instead of 'hours spent on housework'. These errors do not impede overall communication but prevent the score from reaching a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The student demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and time markers effectively (e.g., 'resulting in 100% of houses in 2000 and 2019'). There are several grammatical and punctuation errors throughout the text, including missing prepositions or articles (e.g., 'Over next 20 years' instead of 'Over the next 20 years', 'In coming half the century' instead of 'In the coming half-century'). Punctuation is also faulty in places, such as comma splices and run-on structures in the opening sentence. These errors occur regularly but rarely impede the reader's understanding.

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