The chart below shows the proportion of businesses making e-commerce purchases by industry in Canada between 2015 and 2019.
Sample Response
The bar chart provides information about the proportion of businesses making online purchases by industrypurchasing items online according to industry in Canada between 2015 andin 2019.
Generally speaking, the proportion of businesses involved in e-commerce purchases varied across the years and sectorsacross the years and sectors varied , while the practice was most commonwith the practice being most common in the information and communications industry. In this sector, the proportion of businesses involved was higherthere was a greater proportion of businesses involved (just over 60% in 2015) than in the other sectorsthan the other sectors , rising to about 70%with a rise to just under 70% in 2019, including a peak ofto about 75% in 2018. The proportion of businesses involved in online purchasespurchases on line in the retail sector showed a comparable upward trendfollowed a similar pattern, increasing from about 32% in 2015 to roughly 56% in 2019from about 35% to about 55% in 2019 with a peak of about 58% in 2018. Just under 25% of construction businesses made online purchasesused online purchasing in 2015 compared to more than halfmore than a half in 2019, whereas in the wholesale industry the increase was smaller, rising fromthe rise was much smaller from just over 40% to about 60%. As regards manufacturing, there was a near 100% increase in the proportion of businesses purchasing online from about 33% in 2015 in comparison with about 58% in 2019.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response covers every industry, uses relevant comparisons, and highlights the consistently leading information and communications sector with generally accurate figures. Its main limitation is that the overview does not clearly state the broad rise in online purchasing across all five industries, while the manufacturing increase is slightly overstated as nearly 100%. The highest-priority improvement is to make the overall upward pattern explicit and describe proportional changes with greater numerical precision.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All five industries are covered with mostly accurate start, end, and peak figures, but the overview omits the shared upward trend and slightly overstates manufacturing growth.
State that every industry finished above its 2015 level and describe manufacturing as rising by about 26 percentage points rather than nearly 100%.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response develops logically from the leading sector through the remaining industries, and comparisons are easy to follow despite the long body paragraph.
Divide the details into two grouped paragraphs, for example the highest sectors and the lower-starting sectors, to sharpen progression.
Lexical Resource
The report uses a sufficient range of relevant trend and comparison vocabulary, though repetition and a few awkward combinations reduce precision.
Replace repeated phrases such as businesses involved with concise alternatives like firms purchasing online and the proportion rose.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex comparison structures are generally well controlled, but a few preposition and construction errors remain noticeable.
Correct forms such as between 2015 and 2019 and use peaked at rather than a peak to when describing values.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The chart below shows the proportion of businesses making e-commerce purchases by industry in Canada between 2015 and 2019.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.