The three pie charts below show the changes in annual spending by local authorities in Someland in 1980, 1990 and 2000.
Sample Response
The charts show how much local authorities spent on a range of services in Someland in three separate years: 1980, 1990 and 2000.
In all three years, the greatest expenditure was on education. WhileBut while K-12 education saw a fall from 25% in 1980 to only 18% of spending in 2000, higher education remained the largest proportion, reaching 45% of total spending in 1990 and accounting for 40%ending at 40% in 2000.
Expenditure on health and human resources increased to 20%had increased to 20% by 1990 before decreasing to only 10% by the end of the period. In contrast, the share of transportation saw an opposite trend. This sharecost decreased to only 6% of total expenditure in 1990 but rose dramatically in 2000 when it represented 22% of the total budget. Similarly, spending on environmental servicesthe cost of environmental services saw a rising trend, growing from only 4% to 9% by 2000.
Overall, higher education accounted for the largest shareconstituted the largest cost to local authorities, and while spending increased for transportation and environmental services, there were corresponding drops in expenditure on health and human resources and K-12 education.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response gives a clear, well-organised account of the dominant spending patterns and supports them with accurate comparisons across all three years. Its main limitation is the omission of the Other category, which fell from 6% to 1%; adding this final change while keeping the overview focused on the largest categories would make the coverage more complete.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
A clear overview and accurate figures cover every major category, though the decline in Other from 6% to 1% is omitted.
Include the remaining minor category to make the selection of key changes fully comprehensive.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response progresses logically from an introduction through grouped comparisons to a concise overview, with cohesive links used naturally.
Place the overview immediately after the introduction to foreground the main patterns before the detailed figures.
Lexical Resource
A broad and precise range, including expenditure, constituted, proportion and corresponding drops, describes trends effectively.
Refer to the share of spending on transportation rather than the share of transportation for greater collocational precision.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A varied mix of complex and simple structures is consistently accurate, and punctuation supports clarity.
Maintain this control while using occasional more compact comparative clauses to reduce repetition.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The three pie charts below show the changes in annual spending by local authorities in Someland in 1980, 1990 and 2000.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.