The pie charts below show the percentage of housing owned and rented in the UK in 1991 and 2007.
Sample Response
The two pie charts compared housing owned and rented like a homeowner, social housing, social renting and private renting in terms of percentage, in the UK in two different years 1991 and 2007.
Overall, in both years, the proportion of homeownershomeowners proportion was the largest of all categorieshighest as compared to other components. However, social housing was the smallestlast category. The number of houses also increasedwas also rose steadily over the 16-year periodafter 16 years.
In 1991, the number of houses washad 22 million. Homeowners were 60%around 55% , the largest share that yearwhich was the highest in that period. Additionally, the next largest sector was social rented homes, accounting for just under a quarter, at 23%a quarter or 23%, while social housing and private renting had the smallest shares that year:social housing and private renting were the least proportion that year, 6% and 11%, respectivelyroughly one in ten and 13% respectively. In 2007, homeowners were rose to 70%, which was 15% higher than the 1991 year contrary, social housing was fell to 6% and remained 3% that was lower in this year. Moreover, Private rentingPrivately rented homes remained the same at 1113%, social renting also plungedwas also plunge, accounting for 17% and remaining the second-largest sectoraccounting to a 12%with lower sector. The number of houses had also grown by 5 million to 27 milliongrown to 5 million.
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response has a recognisable overview and identifies home ownership as the largest category in both years, while also noting the rise in the total housing stock. However, numerous percentages are inaccurate or unclear, and frequent grammatical errors weaken comparisons. The highest-priority improvement is to verify every chart value and present each category's change in a separate, grammatically complete comparison.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The main pattern is identified, but several category percentages are inaccurate and the final statement confuses an increase of five million with a total of five million homes.
Check the chart carefully and report the correct figures for all four categories in both years, distinguishing totals from changes.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response follows an introduction-overview-details structure, but run-on sentences and poorly controlled linking make parts of the detail paragraph difficult to follow.
Use shorter sentences and organise the details by category so each 1991-to-2007 comparison is easy to trace.
Lexical Resource
There is enough vocabulary to describe proportions and change, but frequent collocational and word-form errors reduce precision.
Use accurate combinations such as 'the proportion of homeowners rose', 'social renting fell', and 'accounted for'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Frequent errors in verb forms, agreement, articles, and sentence boundaries sometimes strain meaning despite some attempted complex structures.
Prioritise subject-verb agreement and avoid combining passive auxiliaries with simple change verbs, as in 'were rose' or 'was fell'.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The pie charts below show the percentage of housing owned and rented in the UK in 1991 and 2007.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.