The table below shows the proportion of different categories of families living in poverty in Australia in 1999.
Sample Response
The table lists the number and proportion of people living in povertypoverty-stricken families from different Australian household typesvarious types of Australian households in 1999. In general, more than 1.837 million Australians1.83 million Australian households were impoverished and olderelder Australians were less likely to live in povertymore economically affluent than other family types. Looking at the detailsdetail, sole-parent households'sole parents', single people without children'singles with no children' and couple-with-children households'couples with children' were listed as the highest proportionshigh majority of poor family types. They accounted for 21%, 19%, and 12% of people in their respective household categories21%, 19%, and 12% poor family types respectively in their category in 1999. Almost one million couples with children were poverty-stricken family types, the highest, and single Australian had a similar condition in this year. On the other hand, 'aged couple', 'single aged person', and 'couple with no children' had low poverty rateshad a low proportion of poverty at 4%, 6%, and 7%, respectivelyaccounting for 4%, 6% and 7% poor family types respectively in their family category. Interestingly, couples without children were had a lower poverty ratemore economically stable than their couplescounterparts with children.
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response selects the highest and lowest poverty proportions effectively and uses several accurate comparisons across family types. Its main weakness is data precision: the 1.837 million total refers to people, not households, and the comment about a single Australian having a similar condition is unclear and unsupported. Prioritise accurate units and clearer count comparisons, while adding paragraphing to make the overview and details easier to follow.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The main high and low proportions are reported accurately, but the response confuses people with households and gives limited, sometimes unclear treatment of the numerical counts.
State that 1.837 million people were affected and compare the proportions and counts separately without unsupported claims of similarity.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information follows a logical high-to-low sequence with helpful linking, but presenting the entire report as one paragraph weakens the distinction between overview and detail.
Separate the introduction and overview from two grouped detail paragraphs covering higher- and lower-poverty household types.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary shows reasonable range, including terms such as “poverty-stricken” and “counterparts,” though several collocations are awkward or repetitive.
Replace phrases such as “high majority of poor family types” with precise expressions such as “the highest poverty rates” and vary references to categories carefully.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of sentence forms conveys the main meaning, but agreement, article, and noun-phrase errors recur in descriptions of categories and percentages.
Review plural agreement and percentage structures, for example writing that categories “had rates of 21%, 19%, and 12% respectively.”
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The table below shows the proportion of different categories of families living in poverty in Australia in 1999.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.