The three pie charts below show the changes in annual spending by a particular UK school in 1981, 1991 and 2001.
Sample Response
The pie chartsThe given pie charts illustrate a UK school's annual spending and show the changes over two decades. As the charts showAs is seen in the provided pie charts, the school spent a changing share of its budgetan increasing percentage of money on teachers' salaries, reaching a peak of 50%with the maximum of 50% being spent in 1991, after which it was reduced by 5 percentage pointsreduced by 5% in 2001. Also, this remained the area wherearea, where the highest percentage of the money was spent inspent, in the given three years. Expenditure on other workers' salaries decreased significantly over the period, accounting for 28%, 22% and 15%over the years with 28%, 22% and 15% in 1981, 1991 and 2001 respectively. Turning to resources,Again, the percentage spent on resources such as booksresources like books also decreased after a five-percentage-point increasea slight increase of 5% in 1991. SpendingInvestment on furniture and equipment saw a substantial decline from 15% to 5% in the first decadefirst 10 years, before rising again to 23%increasing again up to 23% in 2001. Finally, the smallest proportionleast percentage of annual spending was on insurance over the two decades, with a small increasehike from 2% in 1981 to 3% in 1991 and 8% in 2001from 2% in 1981 to 8% in 2001.
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response selects nearly all key figures accurately and highlights the dominant teachers' salaries share, the fall in other workers' salaries, and the contrasting movement in equipment spending. Its main limitation is presentation: the overview and details are compressed into one paragraph, while a few collocations and commas are awkward. Use a distinct overview and grouped body paragraphs, and refine expressions such as "spending on" and "small increase."
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The report accurately covers all five spending categories, includes the principal trends, and supports them with well-selected figures.
Make the overview more distinct by summarising the two most important overall patterns before presenting individual data.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information follows a clear sequence and linking is generally effective, but the single-paragraph structure compresses the overview and supporting details.
Divide the report into a short overview and two body paragraphs grouping salary costs separately from the remaining categories.
Lexical Resource
A good range of trend and spending vocabulary is used, with only occasional awkward collocations such as "investment on" and "least percentage."
Refine collocations by using forms such as "spending on furniture and equipment" and "the smallest proportion."
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentences are handled with strong overall control, and the few punctuation or phrasing lapses do not impede meaning.
Remove unnecessary commas around restrictive phrases and streamline constructions such as "with a maximum of 50%."
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The three pie charts below show the changes in annual spending by a particular UK school in 1981, 1991 and 2001.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.