The three pie charts below show the changes in annual spending by a particular UK school in 1981, 1991 and 2001.
Sample Response
A glance at the three given graphs reveals some differences among the annual expenditureexpenditures per year of a UKBritish school in three selected years over a 20-year periodin a period of three years: 1981, 1991, 2001.
Overall, it can be seen that there are several clear trendsmany trends that are obviously illustrated in those charts: upward, downward and both upward and downward. The changes in those categoriesThe changes of those features can be divided into two main groups on account of their trends: consistent-trend and fluctuating-trend groupssingle trend and couple trends group.
Starting with the first group, insurance and other workers’ salaries, in 1981, insurance accounted for onlythe insurance only took two percent of the total, however, twenty years laterin twenty years later, the proportionnumber experienced a considerable increase of six percentage points to 8%growth of six percent to eight percent. Unlike the insurance, the salaries of other workers witnessed a respective drop from 28%approximately thirty percent to a mere fifteen percent in about twenty years.
Moving on to the second group, we can see that both teachers' salaries and spending on resourcesboth teachers-salaries’ and resources’ proportions significantly fluctuated. In the first ten years of the period, the numbers rose by ten and five percentage points respectivelyrose five and ten percent to reach fifty and twenty percent, but then fellhowever, slipped dramatically in the next years from fifty to forty-five and from twenty to a mere nine percent. In contrast, furniture and equipment spending first experienced a decrease and then quickly climbed from five percent in 1991 to 23%to twenty percent, a growth of eighteen percent.
It is interesting to note that over the 20-year periodthrough approximately twenty years, the total spending on different things of this UK school changed considerably.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response covers all five spending categories and generally reports their movements accurately, using a sensible grouping by trend. Its main limitation is an overly vague overview that does not identify the dominant category or the most significant changes, while some figures and expressions lack precision. The highest-priority improvement is to state two concrete overview features, such as teachers' salaries remaining largest and furniture spending changing most sharply.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All categories are covered with mostly accurate trends, but the overview is generic and furniture spending in 2001 is understated as 20% instead of 23%.
Highlight the largest category and the most notable rises and falls in the overview, using exact figures selectively.
Coherence and Cohesion
Grouping categories by consistent and fluctuating trends supports progression, although the grouping labels and some long sentences are cumbersome.
Use clear paragraph topics such as steady changes and fluctuating categories, then keep each comparison within a controlled sentence.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a reasonable range of trend vocabulary, but awkward phrases and imprecise category labels reduce naturalness.
Use standard expressions such as rose by six percentage points, fluctuated, and spending on teachers' salaries.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of sentence forms conveys the comparisons, but articles, prepositions, possessives, and comma-linked clauses are frequently inaccurate.
Separate independent clauses and proofread noun phrases and time expressions before finalising the report.
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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.