The bar chart below shows the average duration of housework women did (unemployed, part-time employed, and full-time) when compared to men who had full-time work in the UK between 1985 and 2005.
Sample Response
The given bar chart demonstrates the proportion of time spent by three categories of women such as unemployed, part-time employed and full time employed on domestic chores and full time employed male in the UK on the years of 1985,1995 and 2005
Overall, it can be seen that in all three yearsover the years, unemployed women have spent the most timea considerable amount of time on housework while men with full-time jobsfull type jobs consistently spent the least timeaccount for less time.
The jobless women devoted the same proportion of hours to domestic work for two decades from the year 1985, whereas in 1995 the figure reduced at a minimal rate. The second-highest figuresecond-largest proportion was women in part-time employmentfemales with part-time employees who spentinvested approximately five to six hours in each of the three yearsin three years.
Men in full-time employmentThe men who had full-time jobs spent about half as much time on household chores ashalf of the time on household chores as their female counterparts in full-time employmentfemale counterparts. However, housework hours for all three groups of women decreasedthe hours spent by females moderately reduced while the figure forof men remained unchanged in 1995. In the year 2005 women and men significantly increased for accounting time on house works which was about 1.5 and 2.5 hours respectively.
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response has a recognisable structure and correctly highlights unemployed women as spending the most time on housework while full-time employed men spend the least. However, coverage is sparse and the final 2005 figures reverse the values for full-time women and men, weakening accuracy. The priority is to report all four groups systematically with correct values and clear year-to-year comparisons.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
A relevant overview identifies the broad extremes, but key categories and changes are insufficiently covered and the final comparison is inaccurate.
Compare all four groups across the three years and report the 2005 figures correctly, with full-time women at about 2.7 hours and men at 1.5.
Coherence and Cohesion
Paragraphing provides a basic progression, but unclear references to women and their counterparts weaken the links between comparisons.
Organise details by employment group or year and name each group explicitly whenever the comparison changes.
Lexical Resource
The response shows some range for trends and employment categories, but frequent imprecise collocations reduce clarity.
Use accurate combinations such as hours spent, part-time employed women, fell slightly, and household chores.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Meaning is generally recoverable, but frequent errors in sentence boundaries, agreement, articles, and clause construction limit control.
Build shorter comparison sentences with explicit subjects and check verb forms and punctuation before adding complex clauses.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The bar chart below shows the average duration of housework women did (unemployed, part-time employed, and full-time) when compared to men who had full-time work in the UK between 1985 and 2005.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.