The table below shows the percentage of first-year students who gave ‘very good’ rating to the resources provided by their college, for three courses. Provide an overview of the information by identifying and describing the key details, and include comparisons where appropriate.
Sample Response
The table presents the percentage of first-year students who rated various college resources as ‘very good’ across three courses: Economics, Law, and Commerce. The resources assessed include pre-course information, teaching, tutor support, printed materials, and other resources.
Overall, Commerce received the highest ratings across most categories, while Economics and Law showed more varied ratingsvariations in student satisfaction.
Commerce students gave the highest ratingsexpressed the highest level of satisfaction, with 95% giving a ‘very good’ rating for pre-course information and teaching, while 93% rated tutor support as very goodwere pleased with tutor support. The rating for printed resources stood at 85%, and other resources were rated highly by 81% of students.
In contrast, Economics students gave the lowest rating to pre-course informationrated their pre-course information the lowest, at just 59%, but they were highly satisfied with teaching (95%) and tutor support (90%). Their ratings for printed materials (81%) and other resources (60%) were moderate.
Law students had mixed ratingsopinions about their resources. Pre-course information (72%) was rated higher than in Economics but lower than in Commerce. However, their rating for teachingtheir satisfaction with teaching was the lowest (62%). Tutor support was given a moderate 76% rating, while printed resources (70%) and other resources (80%) were relatively well-rated.
In conclusion, Commerce students appeared the most satisfied, with consistently high ratings in all categories. Law students were the least satisfied with teaching, while Economics students rated pre-course information the lowest but gave high ratings to teaching and tutor supportappreciated teaching and tutor support.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response’s strongest feature is its complete and accurate coverage of the table, with all figures reported and useful contrasts drawn between courses. Its main limitation is that the overview initially states the pattern rather generally and the concluding paragraph largely repeats earlier comparisons. Prioritise a sharper overview that identifies Commerce’s consistently strong results and the specific weakest ratings for Economics and Law, then use the saved space for more selective comparisons.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response accurately reports every figure and identifies the main contrasts among the three courses.
Make the overview more specific by naming the principal highs and lows rather than describing variation generally.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information is logically grouped by course, and progression between the overview and detailed comparisons is easy to follow.
Remove the repetitive concluding paragraph and use that space to integrate the strongest comparisons into the overview.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and generally precise, with appropriate language for ratings, satisfaction, and comparison.
Use evaluative terms such as “moderate” more selectively so that they reflect the relative scale of the table consistently.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A broad range of sentence structures is used accurately, with clear control of comparison and qualification.
Refine sentence openings and clause patterns further to reduce the repeated subject-led structure in the detail paragraphs.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The table below shows the percentage of first-year students who gave ‘very good’ rating to the resources provided by their college, for three courses. Provide an overview of the information by identifying and describing the key details, and include comparisons where appropriate.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.