The pie chart below shows the proportion of different categories of families living in poverty in the UK in 2002.
Sample Response
The pie chart outlines the proportions of people in different household types living in povertypercentages of poor family types in the United Kingdom in 2002. Generally speaking, 14% British households were insolvent in 2002 and half of those poor families were sole parents and singles without any child. As can be seen, 26% of sole parents26% sole parents in the United Kingdom were living in povertyeconomically insolvent in 2002 and this was the highest rate among the household types shownhighest ratio for the poor British family types. Poverty was prevalent among single adults without childrenthe singles without children as 24% of them were belowunder the poverty line. These two types of households accounted for half of the total poverty-stricken families in the UK in 2002. Couples with children had a higher poverty rategreater poverty rate than couples without children. While the 15% former family types witnessed economic misfortune, the latter accounted for 9% of such households. It is worth noticing that older Britonsages British had lowerfewer poverty rates than the other household categoriestheir younger counterparts. Five per cent of aged couplesOne in twenty aged couples lived in povertyhad to go through financial hardships while the figure was 7%it was 7% for single aged peoplethe single aged person.
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response’s strongest feature is its coverage of every household category and its identification of sole parents and singles without children as the groups with the highest poverty rates. The main limitation is a central misreading: adding 26% and 24% does not show that these groups constitute half of all poor families, because each percentage uses a different household group as its base. Prioritise describing rates within categories and making accurate high-to-low comparisons.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All categories and most figures are covered, but the claim that the two highest-rate groups make up half of poor families misinterprets the chart’s denominators.
Present each figure as the poverty rate within that household type and overview the highest and lowest categories without adding unlike percentages.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response progresses logically from the highest rates through couples to aged households, although the single paragraph and some unclear references weaken cohesion.
Separate the overview from grouped details and replace vague references such as ‘former family types’ and ‘the latter’ with explicit category names.
Lexical Resource
The response shows a reasonable range of poverty-related vocabulary, but several choices, including ‘insolvent’, ‘poor family types’, and ‘witnessed economic misfortune’, are imprecise or unnatural.
Prefer neutral statistical language such as ‘living below the poverty line’, ‘household categories’, and ‘had a poverty rate of’.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex comparisons are attempted and meaning remains clear, but article, adjective, noun-phrase, and agreement errors occur throughout.
Review percentage structures such as ‘26% of sole-parent households’ and correct forms such as ‘aged Britons’ and ‘a lower poverty rate’.
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 pie chart below shows the proportion of different categories of families living in poverty in the UK in 2002.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.