The pie chart below shows the main reasons why agricultural land becomes less productive. The table shows how these causes affected three regions of the world during the 1990s.
Sample Response
The pie chart indicates the factors that negatively affect the productivity of agricultural landlands worldwide whereas the tablewhile the table data illustrates the percentages of degraded landpercentage of land degradation in three main regions due to these causesdue to those factors mentioned. The pie chart shows thatFrom the pie chart, it can be seen that the major factor that causes worldwide land degradationthe worldwide land degradation is over-grazing. 35% of agricultural lands worldwide become less productive due to a single factor - over-grazing. Deforestation accounts foris accounted for 30% of global land degradation30% degradation of cultivable land while over-cultivation accounts for 28% of land degradationresults 28% land degradation. All other reasonsAll other minor reasons are categorised as ‘other’ and constituteconstituted 7% of the loss of land productivity7% loss of land fertility. The given table data shows the percentages of agricultural land degradation in three regions during the 1990s, namely:namely - North America, Europe, and Oceania. Oceania comprised many islands in the South Pacific area including New Zealand and Australia. The analysis shows that the highest percentagethat highest percentage of land degradation, 23%, occurred in Europe in the 1990s. This is followed by Oceania and North America where these percentages were 13% and 5% respectively. The most striking feature was that over-cultivation had zero impact in Oceania as it was mostly affected by over-grazing.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response gives an accurate overview and reports all global causes and regional totals clearly, with generally precise vocabulary and a useful comparison of the three regions. Its main limitation is that it barely analyses the table’s individual causes, omitting the dominant cause and figures for North America and Europe; prioritise grouped comparisons across those categories and organise the report into distinct overview and detail paragraphs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response accurately identifies the main worldwide cause, reports all pie-chart figures and regional totals, and highlights a notable Oceania feature, but most cause-by-region data are omitted.
Compare the three causes across all regions, especially Europe’s high deforestation and over-cultivation figures and North America’s over-cultivation dominance.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information progresses logically from the pie chart to the table and referencing is generally clear, but the entire report is presented as one paragraph.
Separate the introduction, overview, and grouped detail comparisons into distinct paragraphs to make the structure immediately visible.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and appropriately academic, although repeated uses of land degradation and awkward choices such as results 28% reduce precision.
Use more natural collocations such as accounts for, results in, and proportion of land degraded while varying repeated key terms carefully.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses a good range of complex structures with mostly clear control, despite several article, preposition, and verb-form errors.
Proofread verb patterns and articles, correcting forms such as is accounted for, results 28%, and highest percentage.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The pie chart below shows the main reasons why agricultural land becomes less productive. The table shows how these causes affected three regions of the world during the 1990s.
Your response
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