The graph below shows how elderly people in the United States spent their free time between 1980 and 2010.
Sample Response
This graph shows the kinds of activities done by elderlyold people in their spare time, covering the period from the 1980s to the 2010scovering a period from the 1980s to now in the United States. We can see that generally the listed activities increased overallactivities listed have been increasing in popularity amongst the elderly, with hiking increasing steadily throughout the periodyears, and watching TV being the most popular overall. In the 1980s, nearly all activities were growing in popularity. The only activity which was becoming less popular between the 1980s and 1990sover these years was going to the theatre. Going to the theatre declined steeply from 50% to 30%. The pattern changed between the 1990s and 2000sThis changed in the 1990s, and going to the theatre became more popular, whereas reading saw a dramatic drop in popularity. The number of people doing all other activities increased. Between the 2000s and 2010sThis century, hiking, reading, going to the theatre and surfing the Internet have all been increasing in popularity. However, watching TV has been decreasing in popularity. Despite this, watching TV is still the second most popular activity nowadays amongst this group. Most elderly people are hiking nowadays in their spare time.
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response is strongest in its accurate summary of the main changes, including hiking’s steady rise and the reversal in theatre attendance. Its main limitation is that most trends are described without enough figures, which weakens the precision of the comparisons. Prioritise supporting the overview with selected start, turning-point, and end values across the five activities.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The overview and trend descriptions are accurate and cover all activities, but supporting data are limited mainly to theatre attendance.
Add selected figures for the major rises, falls, and final rankings to substantiate the comparisons.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response moves coherently through the decades and uses contrast effectively, although the single-paragraph presentation weakens structural separation.
Place the overview in its own paragraph and organise the detailed trends into clearly related groups.
Lexical Resource
Trend vocabulary is varied and generally accurate, though popularity is repeated and old people is less appropriately formal.
Use precise alternatives such as proportion, participation, elderly people, rose, and recovered to reduce repetition and improve register.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses a varied range of complex structures with strong accuracy and clear control throughout.
Keep the grammatical range while using time references that correspond exactly to the historical periods shown.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The graph below shows how elderly people in the United States spent their free time between 1980 and 2010.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.