The pie chart shows the amount of money that a children's charity located in the USA spent and received in one year.
Sample Response
The pie charts depict income and expenditure in a year by an American charity organization for children. Overall, the children's charity had exactly six sources of funds and among them, the ultimate source was food donation whereas they spent their money in three sectors and program services cost them the highest percentage of money. While the charity largely spent money on the program service and it was precisely 95.8%, they vastly got their funds as donated food and it bought 86.6% of their yearly earnings. The second large income source was the community contribution, which was one-tenth; however, the second maximum cost was for the fundraising and it was 2.6% of the total cost. Moreover, there were four other sources of revenue for this organization - program revenue (2.2%), investment income (0.2%), government grants (0.2%), and other income(0.4%). On the other hand, management and general cost accounted for 1.6% of the total budget and it was the lowest expenditure made by the charity. Furthermore, the total receiving fund was $53, 561,580 in a year and the total cost was $53,224,896 which shows just over 330,000 saving for the charity this year.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use concise terminology Original: charity Suggested revision: charitable Why it matters: Charitable organization is the natural adjective-noun form.
- 2. Form the superlative Original: The second large income source Suggested revision: The second-largest income source Why it matters: Second-largest requires a hyphenated superlative form.
- 3. Match the chart label Original: the community contribution Suggested revision: community contributions Why it matters: The chart labels this revenue category as community contributions.
- 4. Use the exact share Original: which was one-tenth Suggested revision: which accounted for 10.4% Why it matters: The chart gives a precise proportion of 10.4% for community contributions.
- 5. Name the expense Original: the second maximum cost Suggested revision: the second-largest expense Why it matters: Second-largest expense is the natural way to rank an expenditure category.
- 6. Remove the article Original: the fundraising Suggested revision: fundraising Why it matters: The category name fundraising does not require the definite article here.
- 7. Use expenditure term Original: 2.6% of the total cost Suggested revision: 2.6% of total expenditure Why it matters: Total expenditure is the precise term for the expenditure chart.
- 8. Introduce the list Original: organization - Suggested revision: organization: Why it matters: A colon appropriately introduces the list of four revenue sources.
- 9. Add missing space Original: other income(0.4%) Suggested revision: other income (0.4%) Why it matters: A space is required before the parenthetical percentage.
- 10. Match the category Original: cost Suggested revision: expenses Why it matters: Expenses accurately names this expenditure category.
- 11. Use the denominator Original: budget Suggested revision: expenditure Why it matters: The 1.6% share is calculated from total expenditure, not a general budget.
- 12. Clarify the ranking Original: the lowest expenditure made Suggested revision: the smallest category of expenditure Why it matters: The chart ranks expenditure categories rather than individual payments made.
Suggested Rewrites
- charity charitable
- The second large income source The second-largest income source
- the community contribution community contributions
- which was one-tenth which accounted for 10.4%
- the second maximum cost the second-largest expense
- the fundraising fundraising
Why this response received Band 6.5
The strongest aspect is comprehensive and numerically accurate coverage, including the dominant donated-food revenue, program-services spending, all minor categories, both totals and the resulting surplus. The main limitation is expression rather than content: a single long paragraph and recurrent awkward collocations and grammatical structures reduce polish. Prioritise separating overview and details, then replace vague phrasing with precise revenue and expenditure language while retaining the accurate figures.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response provides a clear overview, reports all revenue and expenditure categories accurately, and correctly compares the annual totals and surplus.
Refine the overview by stating the slight overall surplus directly and avoid evaluative wording such as “ultimate source.”
Coherence and Cohesion
The sequence from overview to major shares, minor categories and totals is logical, but presenting everything in one paragraph limits the visual hierarchy of the report.
Use separate overview, revenue-detail and expenditure-and-totals paragraphs while retaining the current logical order.
Lexical Resource
The response shows adequate range for financial reporting, but collocations such as “vastly got,” “second maximum cost” and “total receiving fund” are repeatedly unnatural.
Use precise expressions such as “received most revenue from,” “second-largest expense,” “total revenue” and “surplus.”
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A variety of complex sentences conveys the data clearly, although agreement, article, pronoun and clause-linking errors recur across the response.
Keep the charity as a singular subject, control “while” and “whereas” clauses, and check articles and noun forms in financial comparisons.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The pie chart shows the amount of money that a children's charity located in the USA spent and received in one year.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.