The table and chart provide a breakdown of the total expenditure and the average amount of money spent by students per week while studying abroad in four countries.
Sample Response
The table and bar chart compare total student expenditure and its weekly breakdown—accommodation, tuition and living costs—in four countries.
Overall, Country A had the highest overall spending and Country D the lowest; in every destination, living costs accounted for the largest weekly expense, while accommodation generally represented the smallest outlay.
Country A students spent total expenditure of $875a total of $875 per week, followed by Country B at $735, Country C at $540 and Country D at $435. The gap between the highest and second-highest totals was $140, and between the two lowest totalsbetween the lowest and the next was $105.
Breaking down the average weekly spending figuresweekly figures, living costs were the largest category in three of the four countriesliving costs dominated in most of the countries: in Country A they averaged $430, compared with $358 on tuition and $220 on accommodation. Similarly, in Country B students spent $350 on living, $320 on tuition and $280 on accommodation. Country C’s living costs were $275 against $250 for tuition and $240 for accommodation. Meanwhile, in Country D tuition was the highest weekly cost, at $235tuition costs peaked at $235, followed by living expenses of $225 and accommodation at $200, showing a contrasting patternrevealing a contrasting trend in which tuition, rather than living, constituted the principal weekly expense.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response is exceptionally well organised and reports almost all figures with precise, fluent language and effective comparisons. The main weakness is task accuracy: the overview says living costs were largest in every country even though tuition was highest in Country D, and the table totals are presented as weekly amounts. The priority is to distinguish the two datasets and make the overview consistent with the detailed evidence.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The main patterns and nearly all data are covered, but the overview misstates Country D and the table totals are inaccurately labelled as weekly spending.
State that living costs led only in Countries A to C, identify tuition as highest in D, and distinguish total expenditure from weekly category averages.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information is sequenced clearly from overview to totals and then category breakdowns, with smooth and controlled linking.
Align the overview precisely with the later exception for Country D so the progression is fully consistent.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is flexible, precise, and well suited to comparing expenditure, rankings, and contrasting patterns.
Maintain this precision by reserving total expenditure and weekly spending for the correct datasets.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of complex structures is used accurately, with consistently clear punctuation and sentence control.
Continue varying comparison structures while keeping long sentences as tightly controlled as the final sentence.
Write this task while it is fresh
Try the same task now. It helps you remember the feedback and write better next time.
IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The table and chart provide a breakdown of the total expenditure and the average amount of money spent by students per week while studying abroad in four countries.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.