The graph below shows the number of complaints made about noise to Environmental Health authorities in the city of Newtown between 1980 and 1996.
Sample Response
The line graph compares the number of noise complaints to EnvironmentalEnvironment Health authorities made by people in the city of NewtownNewtown city between 1980 and 1996. Generally speaking, the highest number of complaints to EnvironmentalEnvironments Health authorities waswere related to road works.
In 1980, traffic-noise complaints stood at 300the traffic noise started from 300 complaints per year and this figure remained stableit stabilises until it fellplummeted to a low point of 200 in 1986 and remained there until 1988in 1986 till 1988, then it reached 500 in 1992made a peak in 1992 and continued to riserose steadily until the end of 1996. On the other hand, the number of complaints about factoriescomplaints about heavy industries stood at 400 complaintsstarted its growth from 400 complaints in 1980 and rose sharply to 600 by 1982had steeply increased three years on; after that,, since that time it remained reasonably stable during the next 13 years.
Although road works started at a high point of 600 at the beginning of 1980, from 1980 onwards it declined steadily to a point of 70, respectively. However, it fluctuated slightly through the time between 1982 and 1996. It can be seen that the road-works complaint totalthe domestic household reached its highest levelhad a bigger complaints amount at just over 1,200 in 1996at the end of 1996 of point 1200, even though it began at 500 in 1980.
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response attempts to cover all four sources and uses separate paragraphs to organise the description, which gives the report a basic structure. Its main limitation is serious data accuracy: the road-works and domestic/household trends are effectively reversed, and several other values and turning points are misstated. The priority is to match each line to its legend carefully and build the overview from the graph's true contrasting trends.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All four complaint sources are mentioned, but the road-works and domestic trends are reversed and the overview and several details are inaccurate.
Trace each labelled line separately and report the dominant contrast: road works rose sharply while domestic complaints fell steeply.
Coherence and Cohesion
Paragraphing provides a basic progression, but long sentence chains and misused linking expressions make relationships between details difficult to follow.
Use one controlled sentence for each main trend and reserve contrast linkers for genuinely opposing movements.
Lexical Resource
The response attempts a range of trend vocabulary, but frequent awkward collocations reduce precision and naturalness.
Replace phrases such as made a peak and bigger complaints amount with peaked and a higher number of complaints.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex structures are attempted, but frequent errors in tense, verb form, agreement, and sentence boundaries weaken control.
Keep time-series descriptions consistently in the past tense and split run-on sentences into shorter accurate units.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The graph below shows the number of complaints made about noise to Environmental Health authorities in the city of Newtown between 1980 and 1996.
Your response
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