The charts below show the percentage of monthly household income spent on various items by two different groups in one European country.
Sample Response
The pie charts compare the proportion of monthly domestic cost allotted for 7 categories, namely: food and drinks, fuel bill, clothing, transport, miscellaneous, restaurant and hotel and lastly, recreational and cultural activities. The first chart illustrates the expenditures of the low-income group and the second pie chart shows how the high-income group spent their income. Both charts relatepertained to one European countryone of the countries in Europe. It is evident that the low-income group spent the largest proportion of their income on food and drinks while the high-income group allocated the largest share of their income toallotted the majority of their salary for miscellaneous items. Meanwhile, the smallesttiniest percentage of expenditure for lesser income group was for the restaurant and hotel while for the higher income group, this was for clothing. In detail, low-income households allocated the largest share topoor people prioritised food and drinks and this category accounted forthis item demanded 29% of their income, compared with high-income householdstheir wages unlike with rich persons, as it was only their fourth-largest expenseon their 4th priority with only 15%. Surprisingly, the low-income group spent more on fuel bill compared to the high-income group with 24% and 7% respectively. However, in the remaining categories, high-income households allocated higher proportionsrich people had higher expenditures. For instance, high-income households allocated 21%rich individuals spent 21% of their wages on recreational and cultural activities while low-income households allocated only 11% to this categorypoor individuals allotted only 11% for this category. Interestingly, the high-income group spent the largest share to miscellaneous itemsan enormous proportion of the miscellaneous category (23%) while the low-income group allotted only 18%. Also, high-income households allocated a larger share to transportrich individuals spent more on transportation (16%) than poor people (9%). Similarly, both groupscategories spent less than 10%have less than 10% spent on clothing.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response gives a clear overview of the largest and smallest spending shares and supports it with accurate, well-chosen comparisons across the two income groups. Its strongest feature is comprehensive, precise coverage of the charts; the main limitation is awkward phrasing and a dense single-paragraph presentation. The priority is to divide the report into clear overview and detail paragraphs and use more neutral, natural comparison language.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The report accurately identifies the major and minor shares and supports a clear overview with well-selected comparisons covering both groups.
Refine the selection further by adding the exact restaurant-and-hotel contrast while avoiding subjective interpretations such as priority.
Coherence and Cohesion
The comparison develops logically from overview to detailed contrasts, but the entire response is compressed into one long paragraph.
Create a separate overview and divide the details into lower-income priorities and categories where the higher-income group spends more.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and generally precise, but expressions such as domestic cost, lesser income group, and demanded a percentage are unnatural.
Use neutral chart language such as household spending, lower-income group, accounted for, and allocated.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A useful range of complex comparison structures is evident, though errors in articles, prepositions, tense consistency, and clause construction occur noticeably.
Edit complex comparisons for cleaner structure and maintain the present tense consistently when describing chart data.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The charts below show the percentage of monthly household income spent on various items by two different groups in one European country.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.