The graph below shows the contribution of three sectors- agriculture, manufacturing, and business and financial services- to the UK economy in the twentieth century.
Sample Response
The bar chart provides information about how three various sectors (agriculture, manufacturing and business and financial services) contributed to the economy of the UK percentage-wise between 1900 and 2000.
Overall, the manufacturing sector experienced a downward trend, while business and financial services showed an upward trendshowed upward. The agriculturalagriculture sector rose slightly before falling sharplyhad some fluctuations. Although business and financial services initially made the smallest contributioninitially had a lower rate, it overtookoutraced agriculture and manufacturing at the end of the period.
The agricultural segment contributed almost a half of the percentage in 1900 and went up slightly by around 4% in the next half-decade. However, it declined remarkably up to a one-tenth by the year 1975 and hitting a low-point merely around 2% in 2000.
In 1900In the year 1900, the contribution of business and financial servicescontribution by trade and financial services was just about 53%, and it rose marginally to approximately 10% in 1950. It further increased by 10% in the next twenty-five yearsin next twenty-five years, when about one third of the totalabout a one-third of proportion was made up by the manufacturing sectormanufacturing units. Business and financial services reversed the situation in a century and largely contributed to the UK economy at around 3538% in the year 2000.
Contribution by manufacturing sector was about 45% at the beginning of the period, and it experienced a gradual declineexperienced gradual decline to approximately 15%approximately up to 18% in 2000, over the period of 100 years.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response has a clear overview and traces the contrasting directions of all three sectors, supported by several relevant figures. Its main limitation is recurring imprecision in descriptions of time, proportions, and change, compounded by noticeable grammatical awkwardness. The highest-priority improvement is to verify each period and value against the chart, then express comparisons with conventional, grammatically complete phrases.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The overview captures the main sector trends and the response covers the full period, though some time references and figures are imprecise.
Check each year and endpoint carefully, replacing half-decade with half-century and reporting the 1975 and 2000 proportions exactly.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information is organised around the overview and individual sectors with clear overall progression, despite one manufacturing detail being misplaced in the services paragraph.
Keep every sector's figures within its own paragraph and use direct comparisons between sectors at the same year.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is sufficient to describe trends, but frequent awkward choices such as showed upward, outraced, and a one-third of proportion reduce precision.
Use established trend collocations such as rose, overtook, accounted for, and fell to when describing changes and proportions.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses both simple and complex structures, but article, preposition, and verb-form errors recur even though meaning remains clear.
Edit sentence boundaries and dependent clauses, particularly constructions such as while services rose and it declined before hitting a low.
Write this task while it is fresh
Try the same task now. It helps you remember the feedback and write better next time.
IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The graph below shows the contribution of three sectors- agriculture, manufacturing, and business and financial services- to the UK economy in the twentieth century.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.