The charts below show the percentage of food budget the average Australian family spent on restaurant meals in different years. The graph shows the number of meals eaten in fast food restaurants and sit-down restaurants.
Sample Response
The pie charts and line graphpie chart and line graphs showreveal that the average Australian familyaverage Australian families fromduring 1980 to 2010 showed increasing interest intook more interests in restaurant meals and fast-food meals became increasingly commonfast food meals became quite popular among them. The pie charts show thatAnalysing the data presented in the pie charts reveals that thean average Australian family spent only 15% of their food budget on restaurant meals whileon outside food while the remaining 85% went on home cookingremaining 85% was spent on preparing food at home. Over the period, Australians started spending more on restaurant meals and started spending half of their budget on outside food just in 20 years. In 2010, they spentspend 60% of their food budget on restaurant mealsbistro foods and that was four times the 1980 sharethat was a quadruple increase over 30 yearsjust in 30 years. Based on the line graph, Australians ate 20 meals both in a fast food shop and in a sit-down restaurant in 1970 and this number gradually increased in the next 20 years as fast food becamewhen the fast food became more popular in terms of the number of meals eaten by an average Australian in a year. The gap between the fast food and restaurant meal eating increased dramatically and in 2010 more than 110 meals were eaten in a fast food shop while this number was just above 60 in the case of sit-down restaurants.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response clearly identifies the shift toward restaurant meals and the faster growth of fast-food dining, and it supports these trends with accurate endpoint figures. Its main limitation is selective and sometimes imprecise coverage, including “bistro foods” and little attention to the intermediate crossover; prioritize comparing the 1980–2000 values and naming the categories exactly as shown.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The main trends and several key values are accurately selected, but intermediate comparisons and the crossover between restaurant types receive limited attention.
Compare the 1980, 1990, and 2000 figures to show when fast-food meals overtook sit-down meals.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas follow a clear chart-by-chart sequence with effective linking, but the single-paragraph presentation limits structural clarity.
Separate the overview, food-budget data, and meal-frequency data into distinct paragraphs.
Lexical Resource
There is a sufficient range of reporting vocabulary, though several phrases such as “took more interests” and “bistro foods” are unnatural or inaccurate.
Use exact category labels and natural collocations such as “showed greater interest” and “restaurant meals.”
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentences are used with generally clear meaning, but tense, article, and agreement errors appear in several places.
Maintain past tense throughout and check articles in phrases such as “fast food became more popular.”
Write this task while it is fresh
Try the same task now. It helps you remember the feedback and write better next time.
IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The charts below show the percentage of food budget the average Australian family spent on restaurant meals in different years. The graph shows the number of meals eaten in fast food restaurants and sit-down restaurants.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.