The charts below show the percentage of food budget the average 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 given chartsillustration compares the percentagesamounts spent on restaurant mealsfoods and on home-cooked foodhome cooking foods in four different years and gives data on the number of meals eaten at two types of restaurantin two different restaurant types. As shownAs is presented in the pie chart, in 1970initially in 1970, 90% of the total food budget90% of total food budget was spent on home cooking, whilespent on home-made foods while only 10% was spent on restaurant mealsfoods. The amount spent on restaurant meals increased to 15% in 1980 while it reached 35%reached to 35% in 1990. Finally, in 2000200, thean average family spent half of its food budgethalf of the total budget onin restaurant meals and that shows a rapid increase in the people’s habit of having meals in restaurants. In the line graph, we can observe that in 1970, the fast foods and sit-down restaurant meals were taken 20 thousand times each and over time these numbers kept increasing. Finally, in 2000, more than 90 thousand fast food meals were eaten while the sit-down restaurant meals were eaten 50 thousand times a year. This indicates changes in people’s habitsThis indicates the changes in people’s habit of eating out and the popularity of restaurant foods over the home-made foods. In summary, over the 30 years’ time, people adopted the habit of eating out at restaurant and sit-down restaurant gained more popularity over the fast food shops.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response clearly reports the steadily rising restaurant-budget share and communicates the broad increase in both meal series. However, it omits the intermediate line-graph figures and ends with the inaccurate claim that sit-down restaurants became more popular, despite fast-food meals rising much higher by 2000; the final fast-food figure is also overstated. Prioritise an accurate overview comparing the two lines, including their crossover and widening gap.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The budget percentages and broad trends are reported, but key line-graph comparisons are omitted and the final popularity claim reverses the visual evidence.
State that sit-down meals initially led, fast food overtook them by 1990, and the gap widened to roughly 85 versus 50 meals in 2000.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response follows the two visuals in a generally clear sequence, though repetitive transitions and a contradictory final summary weaken progression.
Use one focused overview before separate detail paragraphs for the budget shares and restaurant-meal trends.
Lexical Resource
There is sufficient range for describing changes and proportions, but several collocations are unnatural or imprecise.
Replace phrases such as "meals were taken" and "restaurant foods" with precise alternatives such as "meals were eaten" and "restaurant meals."
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Varied sentence structures convey meaning clearly, although article, preposition, agreement, and word-form errors recur.
Check articles and fixed prepositions in phrases such as "at restaurants," "spent on restaurant meals," and "reached 35%."
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The charts below show the percentage of food budget the average 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.