The graph below shows four countries of residence of overseas students in Australia.
Sample Response
The line graph shows the numbers of studentsillustrates information on students, which came from Indonesia, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore to Australia between 1982 and 2000.
The number of students arriving from Malaysiastudents, arrived from Malaysia from 1982 to 1993, rose steadilysteadily grew from about 5,000about 500 to about 8,000 studentsalmost 10,000 students, meanwhile, the number of students from the other countriesstudents in other countries increased dramaticallydramatically has increased from different starting levels to varying totalsfrom approximately 2000 to 10 000 students. The number of foreign students from 1993 to 2000 fluctuated significantly between 10,000 students and less than 20,000, with the exception of students, arrived from Indonesia. There wasThere was seen rapid growth in the number of studentsin a number of foreign students from Indonesia from 1993 to 1998from 1993-1998, reachinghaving reached a peakits maximum of 26,000 students. There was a slight decrease in the number of students from Indonesia from 1998 to 2000, from 26,000 to approximately 23,000 students. There was a significant change in the amount of overseas students in 5 times in the period 1982 to 2000, except students from Malaysia.
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response identifies Indonesia's exceptional late growth and attempts to summarise the broad upward trends, while the main message remains understandable. However, the overview is unclear, several starting values and cross-country generalisations are inaccurate, and the four series are not compared systematically. The highest priority is to establish an accurate overall pattern from the graph, then organise selected figures by country and period.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response notes Indonesia's peak and subsequent decline, but it lacks a clear overview and misreports Malaysia's starting value and the early figures for the other countries.
State the main pattern accurately, then compare the four lines using reliable values, including Malaysia's early lead and Indonesia's later dominance.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information follows a broadly chronological progression, although the dense second paragraph and loosely connected comparisons make relationships harder to follow.
Group the report into an overview and two comparative periods, using one clear sentence for each major cross-country relationship.
Lexical Resource
There is an adequate range of trend language, but imprecise choices such as amount of students and change in five times weaken accuracy.
Use precise data-reporting collocations such as number of students, rose fivefold, peaked at, and remained below.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex forms are attempted, but frequent errors in relative clauses, participles, word order, articles, and prepositions reduce control.
Build accurate subject-verb clauses first and avoid faulty constructions such as students, arrived and there was seen.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The graph below shows four countries of residence of overseas students in Australia.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.