The three pie charts below show the changes in annual spending by a particular UK school in 1981, 1991 and 2001.
Sample Response
The three pie charts represent the proportion of annual spendingyearly expenditures of a specific UK school in 1981, 1991 and 2001. It is immediately apparent that the largest share of spending in all three years went to teachers’ salariesthe majority of expenditures among the three years belonged to teachers’ salaries, while insurance accounted for the smallest sharethe least spending was recorded by insurance.
In 1981, the spending on teachers’ wages was 40% followed by a growth to 50% in 1991, and witnessed a slight decline to 45 percent in 2001.
It was merely 2% of expenditure on insurance in 1981, slightly increased to 3% in 1991, whereas the consumption skyrocketed to four times larger, 8% in comparison with 1981 in 2001. However, the proportion of money spent on other workers’ salaries fell over the periodhad been falling during the periods, startingstarted at 28% in 1981 and decreased to 22% in 1991, eventually becomingbecame just over half its 1981 levelnearly half of that of 1981 in 2001(15%).
The spending on resources and furniture and equipment showed the opposite trends, which were the same at 15% each in 1981. Spending on resourcesThe first one rose by 5 percentage pointsgained by 5% to 20% over the following ten-year periodin ten-year period and then more than halved to 9%became almost halved(9%) in 2001, while spending on furniture and equipmentthe latter one first fell to one-third of its 1981 levelone-third of that of 1981 in 1991 and finally surged to 23%surged to a high of 23% finally.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response’s strongest feature is its detailed and accurate coverage of all five spending categories, supported by a clear overview of the largest and smallest items. The main limitation is frequent grammatical and collocational awkwardness in long sentences, which makes otherwise sound comparisons less fluent. Prioritise building complete clauses with clear subjects and using conventional language for rises, falls, and proportions.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response identifies the principal features and reports the figures and changes across all three years with only minor imprecision in phrasing.
Strengthen the overview by also highlighting the contrasting trends in other workers’ salaries, resources, and furniture and equipment.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information is organised into a clear sequence of categories, with effective comparison between years and generally controlled referencing.
Split the longest sentences into cleaner comparison units so the progression of each spending category is easier to follow.
Lexical Resource
There is sufficient range for describing change, but expressions such as “consumption skyrocketed” and “gained by 5%” are inaccurate collocations for expenditure data.
Use standard formulations such as “spending rose to,” “the proportion increased by,” and “the figure fell to.”
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response attempts varied complex structures, but faulty clause construction, verb forms, and articles occur frequently despite meaning remaining clear.
Give each clause an explicit grammatical subject and use parallel finite verbs when describing a sequence of changes.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The three pie charts below show the changes in annual spending by a particular UK school in 1981, 1991 and 2001.
Your response
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