The pie charts below show the percentage of housing owned and rented in the UK in 1991 and 2007.
Sample Response
The pie charts compare home ownership and renting for 1991 and 2007 in percentage terms. In 1991, homeowners werehome owner were the largest housing categorymost popular type of housing, accounting for 60%, or more than halfmore than over half of all homes. The second-largest categoryThe next largest sector was socially rented housingwas social rented homes, amounting to 23%, or just under one-quarter of homes23% or nearly one-third of homes. The remaining homes were mostly privately rented (11%) while a smaller share was social housingwith a tiny fraction being social housi ng (6%).
Sixteen years later, in 2007, the proportion of homeownersthe number of home owners had risen to 70%, or almost three quarters of all homes. This was an increase of 10 percentage pointsan increase of 10% compared with 1991. Much of the increase in home ownership can be accompaniedexplained by the fall in socially rented housingdecrease in social rented homes, which had dropped from 23% to 17%.
The percentage of privately rented homes remained unchangedhad remained unchanged at 11%. However, there were 5 million more homes in 2007 than in 1991, socompared with 1991 so the number of privately rented homesthe number of rented homes had increased despite its unchanged sharedespite the same percentage. Social housing has decreased three-fold from 6% in 1991 to 2% in 2007, and it remains the least popular type of housing.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response gives a generally accurate, well-organised account of all four tenure categories and uses the totals to add a useful comparison. Its main weakness is that the overview is distributed across the details rather than stated clearly, while a few claims are imprecise, especially ‘nearly one-third’ for 23% and the causal explanation of ownership growth. Prioritise a concise overview that highlights the dominant category and principal changes without unsupported interpretation.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All categories and most figures are accurately covered, but the overview is implicit and a few comparisons or interpretations are imprecise.
Add a distinct overview stating that ownership was dominant and rose while both social categories fell and private renting remained stable.
Coherence and Cohesion
The report progresses logically by period and links related figures effectively, although the key trends are not consolidated in an overview.
Place the main cross-period trends together in a short overview before presenting the detailed figures.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and generally precise, with effective terms such as ‘accounting for’ and ‘remained unchanged’, despite occasional awkward wording.
Use more exact expressions such as ‘just under a quarter’ and avoid redundant phrasing such as ‘more than over half’.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A useful range of complex structures is mostly controlled, but agreement, tense, and noun-form errors occur in several places.
Proofread subject–verb agreement and consistent past-tense reporting, especially forms such as ‘home owners were’ and ‘social housing decreased’.
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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.