Band 6
IELTS Academic Task 1 Band 6 sample answer 1
A real candidate answer at Band 6, with every examiner correction marked on it. 10 corrections.
Band 6 answers communicate clearly. What holds them at 6 rather than 7 is usually consistency: the good sentences are good, and the weak ones are still frequent.
This is the band where progress feels slowest, because the obvious errors are gone and what remains is harder to see without someone pointing at it.
Click any highlighted word to see the correction. The commentary at the foot of the page explains what holds the answer at this band overall.
The task
The Task 1 report question
The chart this describes is noted below.
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The chart below shows how people travelled to work in 1996 and 2001.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
The answer
The report as the candidate wrote it
Reproduced exactly as written, errors included.
This chart compares how people travelled to work in 1996 and 2001. Approximately 68% of people travelled by car or truck in 2001 to 1996. The least number of people travelled in 2001 and very few travelled by bicycle in 1996.
Most people working from home in year 2001 in comparison to the use of private vehicles in year 1996.
The other ways of travel taxi, ferry in 1996 and 2001. In 2001, the order was passengers in private vehicles, public transport, bicycle and walking, while in 1996 the preferred way was public transport, others, walking, and bicycle. Although the order changed, there was not a significant difference between them over the period when compared to driving own their own vehicle.
To summarise there changes in travel that is either by driving a car or truck in year 1996 and in 2001.
(162 words)
Examiner comments
Why this is a Band 6 Academic Task 1 answer
The overall verdict, criterion by criterion.
Although the writer has covered the main points shown in the graph, this is only supported by one piece of data (68%). It is important to support your sentences with relevant statistics from the graph or chart.
There are also some irrelevant sections (such as using computers in the first body paragraph). Some sentences show a good use of grammar, while other sentences are less accurate.
The description of the 'other' category is quite repetitive, but the main points are covered in a suitable number of words, and ideas are logically arranged in paragraphs.
The other Academic Task 1 band samples
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