The graph below shows usual water usage (in millions of cubic meters) by industries in some countries in a year.
Sample Response
The bar chart compares the public-supply waterpublic water and groundwater consumptionconsumptions across seven industriesin 7 industries. Overall, it can be seen that the chemical industry useschemical industry uses the largestbiggest volume of water. Moreover, most industriesalmost all industries use more groundwater than public-supply water.require groundwater than public supply water. In detail, chemical industry utilizes 670 million cubic metres water- 430m of this is from the groundwater and the remaining is from the public supply. This volume is less than half in the metal industry, 240 million and 90 million cubic metres groundwater and public supply water respectively. Textile, paperpapers and fuel industries, on the other hand, consume the smallest volumesleast volume of water from the public supply. To be specific, only about 10–20 million cubic metres of water10-20 million cubic meter water is consumed by these industries from the public supplyfrom public supply while 70–190 million cubic metres come from groundwater70-110 is from groundwater. In contrast, food and drinks industries consume more water from the public supply, 190 million cubic metres while only 110 from groundwater. Finally, the machinery industryFinally, machinery industry utilises 110 million cubic metres of water110 million cubic metres water of which 100 million cubic metres comes from the public supplyof which 100 is public supply water.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response identifies the dominant industry and the broad contrast between groundwater and public supply, while supporting most comparisons with relevant figures. Its main weakness is some incomplete or inaccurate coverage, especially the stated groundwater range for fuel, textiles and paper, alongside recurring article and comparison errors. Prioritise checking every grouped figure against the chart and presenting a sharper, fully accurate overview.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
A clear overview and mostly relevant figures cover the main patterns, but the groundwater range for fuel, textiles and paper is inaccurate because paper uses 190 million cubic metres.
Verify each grouped range against the chart and explicitly distinguish paper's much higher groundwater use from fuel and textiles.
Coherence and Cohesion
The information follows a generally logical industry-by-industry sequence and uses clear contrast markers, although the single-paragraph presentation weakens the organisation.
Separate the overview from two logically grouped detail paragraphs, such as high-use and lower-use industries.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a sufficient range of reporting vocabulary, but awkward collocations such as 'groundwater consumptions' and 'require groundwater than' reduce precision.
Use natural comparison phrases such as 'consume more groundwater than publicly supplied water' and maintain accurate unit expressions.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex structures conveys the data clearly, despite recurring article, noun-form and comparative errors.
Proofread articles, plurals and quantity structures, especially forms such as 'million cubic metres of water' and 'more ... than'.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The graph below shows usual water usage (in millions of cubic meters) by industries in some countries in a year.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.