The table below shows the sales at a small restaurant in a downtown business district.
Sample Response
The table shows daily sales at a restaurant in the downtown business district during an October week. The data is split into two parts, first being sale generated for lunch and second for dinner. At the onset, the sale revenue generated during dinner is more than that of lunch and sales amount during weekends is lower when compared to average revenue earned during a typical weekday. The week starts on Monday with revenue of 2400 dollars for the lunch and 3623 for dinner which is more than 50% of revenue realised during the lunchtime. During lunch hours the revenue seems to be showing an increasing trend and reached its peak on Wednesday with $2595. It crashed from there to $2375 on Thursday but regain momentum on Friday with a closing figure of $2500. On the other hand revenue during lunch hours seems to be dwindling throughout the week. Showing an increase on Tuesday and then a fall on Wednesday. But it closed its week with the highest revenue of $4350 on Friday. Weekends tells a different story altogether, revenue which was hovering around $2400 for lunch and around $3600 for dinner, crashed to its lowest point on Sunday with disappointing figures of $1550 & $2450 for lunch and dinner respectively.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use the plural noun Original: sale Suggested revision: sales Why it matters: Sales is the appropriate plural noun for the restaurant's takings.
- 2. Use overview phrasing Original: onset Suggested revision: outset Why it matters: At the outset is the natural expression for introducing an overview.
- 3. Remove redundant wording Original: sale revenue generated Suggested revision: revenue generated Why it matters: Revenue already denotes money from sales, so sale is redundant here.
- 4. Make the comparison clear Original: is more than that of lunch Suggested revision: is higher than lunch revenue Why it matters: Higher than gives a grammatically complete comparison between the two revenue figures.
- 5. Use a natural noun phrase Original: sales amount during weekends Suggested revision: weekend sales Why it matters: Weekend sales is the concise and grammatically natural phrase.
- 6. Complete the comparison Original: when compared to average revenue Suggested revision: than the average revenue Why it matters: The comparative lower should be followed directly by than.
- 7. Remove the article Original: for the lunch Suggested revision: for lunch Why it matters: Lunch takes no article when referring to the meal service generally.
- 8. State the comparison accurately Original: 3623 for dinner which is more than 50% of revenue realised during the lunchtime Suggested revision: $3,623 for dinner, which was about 51% higher than the lunch figure Why it matters: The dinner figure was about 51% higher than $2,400, rather than merely more than half of it.
- 9. Use neutral reporting language Original: crashed Suggested revision: fell Why it matters: Fell describes the modest change from $2,595 to $2,375 without exaggeration.
- 10. Match the past tense Original: regain Suggested revision: regained Why it matters: The surrounding account is in the past tense, so the verb must also be past tense.
- 11. Avoid a false endpoint Original: closing figure Suggested revision: figure Why it matters: Friday is not the end of the recorded week because Saturday and Sunday follow.
- 12. Correct the meal label Original: On the other hand revenue during lunch hours Suggested revision: By contrast, dinner revenue Why it matters: The following values and Friday peak describe dinner, not lunch.
Suggested Rewrites
- sale sales
- onset outset
- sale revenue generated revenue generated
- is more than that of lunch is higher than lunch revenue
- sales amount during weekends weekend sales
- when compared to average revenue than the average revenue
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response provides a relevant overview and identifies the main weekday, weekend, and peak-sales patterns with several accurate figures. Its effectiveness is reduced by a mistaken lunch reference when describing dinner, some imprecise trend statements, and frequent grammatical slips and fragments. The priority is to separate lunch and dinner comparisons carefully, then edit each sentence for complete structure and accurate agreement.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The main features are generally covered with a valid overview, but one dinner trend is mislabeled as lunch and some descriptions are imprecise.
Track lunch and dinner in separate detail sentences and verify every label and trend against the table before finalising the report.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information follows a broadly logical weekday-to-weekend sequence, though the single dense paragraph and several fragments weaken progression.
Use distinct overview, weekday-detail, and weekend-detail paragraphs, and attach each fragment to a complete sentence.
Lexical Resource
There is an adequate range of trend and revenue vocabulary, but choices such as 'at the onset,' 'crashed,' and 'disappointing' are awkward or subjective.
Prefer neutral, precise reporting verbs such as 'rose,' 'fell,' 'peaked,' and 'recorded' for numerical changes.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Both simple and complex forms are attempted, but errors in agreement, verb form, articles, and sentence boundaries occur frequently.
Correct forms such as 'sales were,' 'regained,' and 'weekends tell,' and turn sentence fragments into complete clauses.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The table below shows the sales at a small restaurant in a downtown business district.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.