The pie chart below shows the results of a survey of the causes of poor learning outcomes in schools in a particular country in 2011.
Sample Response
The pie chart presents a survey result that outlines why pupils in schools poorly performed in a country in 2011. Categorically speaking, unskilledinexpert teachers and family issues were the main reasons they had poor learning outcomeswretched outcomes in learning.
In detailshort, unskilled educators, family issues like working parents, improper upbringing ofor children, insufficient facilities and lack of study and revision were the main reasons why schoolgoers' learningreasons schoolgoers' learning, in this country, was poornot up to the mark. As the data suggests, unskilled teachersmasters in schools were the primary causeground for young students’ inadequate performance as unskilled teachers accounted for 35%35% attribution was made to unskilled teachers. The second most prominentprotuberant reason, accounting for 27%denoted as 27%, was attributed towas indicated towards the upbringing of the children which is a family-related factorwhich is related to the family issue. Working parentsWorking-class parents were reportedattributed to influence students' learningstudents learning negatively as 20% of poor learning results was linked to the bad performance of pupils in schools. Inadequate facilities and lack of revision were pointed out to cause 10% and 8% of these poor outcomes, respectively10 and 8 percentages of this unsatisfactory performance based on the outcomes of the survey.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response accurately reports all five proportions and clearly identifies unskilled teachers and family-related causes as the dominant factors, giving it solid task coverage. Organisation is generally clear, but comparisons remain limited. Its main weakness is strained, sometimes imprecise wording and awkward grammar, which make several points harder to process; prioritise natural collocations, direct comparisons, and precise percentage expressions.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response provides a clear overview and accurately reports every category and percentage, though comparisons are not developed much beyond identifying the leading causes.
Group and compare the larger family-related shares with the two smallest causes more explicitly instead of mainly listing figures.
Coherence and Cohesion
The overview and details follow a generally logical order, but the long second paragraph becomes dense and some links between ideas are repetitive.
Divide the detailed information into clearer comparison groups and use shorter sentences to make the progression easier to follow.
Lexical Resource
There is a reasonably wide vocabulary, but frequent unsuitable choices such as “wretched outcomes,” “protuberant reason,” and “unskilled masters” reduce precision and naturalness.
Prefer straightforward academic collocations such as “poor performance,” “second-largest cause,” and “unskilled teachers.”
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of sentence forms is attempted and meaning remains clear, although errors in articles, possession, verb patterns, and percentage expressions recur.
Review noun phrases and verb complements, and write proportions in forms such as “accounted for 10% and 8%.”
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The pie chart below shows the results of a survey of the causes of poor learning outcomes in schools in a particular country in 2011.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.