The pie charts below show responses by teachers of foreign languages in Britain to a survey concerning why their students are learning a foreign language. The first chart shows the main reason for learning a foreign language. The second chart shows how many teachers felt that there has been a recent change in the reason.
Sample Response
The first pie chart shows different reasons why students learn a second language while the second chart illustrates how they account for recent changes. Data is based on a survey by British foreign-language teacherssome British teachers of foreign languages. Overall, travel istravel seems to be the primary reason for learning a second language according to the surveyed teachersamong British students. At the same time, the majority of teachers think that the recent increase in students' learning of a foreign language habit these days is mainly influenced by the aim of owning overseas properties or professional reason. To begin with, 33% of1 out of every 3 teachers of foreign languages in Britain believes that students learn a foreign language for traveltravelling. By contrastBut conversely, regarding its share among reasons for the recent increasethe effect it has to recent changes, it represents the lowest proportion, with only 3% of teachers reporting this reasonwith only 3% of all teachers think so. Besides, the purpose of work or business accounts for learning according to 26% of teachers, and 19% think that they increased recently. On the other hand, 19%just below one-fifth of all teachers believe that students' main reason for learning a new language is to buy property overseasstudents' main reason for learning a new language to buy properties. However, the figure rises to 34%becomes as high as one-third among reasons for the recent increasewhen it comes to its effect. Similarities can be seen for general interest, personal development and having a foreign partner, as their figures are around 5%. Additionally, 15% of all teachers report a recent increase due toattribute recent changes to having social contacts. And finally, the same 15%an equal proportion of teachers believe there have been no changes.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response gives a clear overview and accurately identifies the main patterns, including travel as the leading established reason and overseas property as the strongest area of recent growth. Its coverage is generally well selected, but the single-paragraph presentation and several awkward or incomplete constructions make relationships less precise; the highest priority is to organise the overview and details into clear paragraphs while using more accurate comparative language.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
A clear overview and mostly accurate figures cover the principal features, though some smaller categories are grouped imprecisely and the first-chart social-contact figure is omitted.
Make the comparison between established reasons and recent increases explicit, and report omitted categories accurately.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response progresses logically from the overview to major and minor figures, but it is presented as one paragraph and several connectors and references are awkward.
Separate the introduction, overview, and detail groups into paragraphs, and use cohesive devices only where the relationship is exact.
Lexical Resource
There is enough range to describe proportions and changes, but recurrent collocation errors weaken precision and sometimes make comparisons awkward.
Use standard chart language such as accounted for, reported an increase, and the corresponding proportion consistently.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex structures is attempted, but agreement errors, missing verbs, and malformed clauses occur repeatedly despite meaning remaining mostly clear.
Check each clause for a complete verb phrase and correct subject-verb agreement, especially around percentage expressions.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The pie charts below show responses by teachers of foreign languages in Britain to a survey concerning why their students are learning a foreign language. The first chart shows the main reason for learning a foreign language. The second chart shows how many teachers felt that there has been a recent change in the reason.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.