The chart below shows the changes in sales of four different types of books from 2002 to 2012.
This response is estimated at Band 7.0. Can you write a better one?
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Sample Response
The bar graph compares the changesdeviations in sales of four different book genres overfor a decade, from 2002 to 2012. Overall, the sales of three given categories - history, entertainment and art books showed a rising trend except for hobby related books while the demand for history books was the highest. In particular, history books were the biggest sellers with saleswith a sale volume of around 4500 copies in 2002. This genrepublication reached its highest sales figuremade the highest selling record in 2008 with 10,000 copies soldten thousand sales and then declined slightly in the subsequent yearsand then in subsequent years witnessed a slight drop. In 2012, over 9,000 history booksover 9000 history books were sold. The sales of art and entertainment books in 2002 were around 2 thousand copies, approximately half of the history book sales and showed an overall progress in the following years. Approximately 3000 copies of each genreeach of these two genres were sold in 2008, whichin 2008 which was higherrelatively higher than the figures for 2006previous year's sales. Finally, in 2012 the demand for art books increased to 4000 while the former one was sale volume stood at nearly 3000. By contrastOn the contrary, hobby-book categoryhobbies book category recorded the lowest salesthe least sale, with sales remaining between 500 and 700 copiesremained between 500 to 700 in the given period.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response gives a clear overview and selects the most important trends and figures accurately, particularly the dominance and peak of history-book sales. The main weakness is uneven language control: several awkward lexical choices and malformed clauses make otherwise sound comparisons less polished. The highest-priority improvement is to express each comparison in a complete, precise sentence while retaining the strong data selection.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The report accurately highlights the leading genre, overall directions, peak values, and final-year comparisons, with only limited detail on intermediate changes.
Add one concise comparison showing how the smaller categories changed across the intervening years.
Coherence and Cohesion
The overview appears early and the details progress logically by genre, although presenting everything in one paragraph reduces structural clarity.
Separate the overview from two grouped detail paragraphs, such as history versus the three lower-selling genres.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary range is sufficient for trends and comparisons, but expressions such as 'deviations,' 'made the highest selling record,' and 'overall progress' lack precision.
Use standard data-reporting collocations such as 'sales rose,' 'reached a peak,' and 'showed an overall increase.'
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of sentence forms is used and meaning remains clear, but agreement, article, and clause-construction errors are noticeable throughout.
Edit malformed structures such as 'the former one was sale volume stood' into direct subject-verb comparisons.