The charts below show local government expenditure in 2010 and 2015.
Sample Response
The charts show the percentage breakdown of government spending across nine categories in 2010 and 2015. Over the five-year period, there were significant changes in expenditure.
In both years, the four largest areas of government expenditure werewere: education, healthcare, pensions, and defence, with education taking the largest share (24% in 2010 and 21% in 2015). The smallest areas of expenditure were transport, culture and leisure, and “other”transport, culture and leisure and “other”. Interest on borrowing and spending on welfare lay in between.
Interestingly, between 2010 and 2015, spending on all four of the largest areas droppedhad dropped, with the exception of pensions, which remained the same at 19%. Spending on transport and culture and leisure also fell significantly, with the transport budget declining by two thirds. On the other hand, spending on welfare and interest on government borrowing rose markedly, with interest on borrowingthe latter doubling over the five-year period to 10%.
Overall, the charts indicate that the government has had to cut expenditure in most areas in order to fund the cost of borrowing and welfare.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response selects the most important comparisons efficiently, reports the principal figures accurately, and maintains clear progression with precise, varied language. The only notable weakness is the concluding claim that cuts were made to fund borrowing and welfare, since the charts show proportions but do not establish causation. Replace that inference with a neutral overview of the shift toward welfare and interest, while retaining the concise comparative detail.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response accurately identifies the largest and smallest categories and the main changes, but its final causal explanation is unsupported by the charts.
Conclude objectively that most categories declined while welfare and borrowing interest gained share, without claiming why the changes occurred.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information is sequenced clearly from category rankings to changes over time, with cohesive devices used naturally and efficiently.
For an even tighter progression, place the objective overview immediately after the introduction and reserve the final paragraph for supporting comparisons.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is precise, varied and well suited to proportional comparisons, with natural expressions for rises, falls and relative size.
Maintain this control while choosing neutral wording that separates observable chart data from interpretation.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of sentence structures is used accurately, and the response is virtually error-free throughout.
Prefer the simple past over the past perfect when directly describing changes between the two chart years.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The charts below show local government expenditure in 2010 and 2015.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.