The line graph below gives information about men and women smokers in Bhutan from 1960 to 2000.
Sample Response
The line graph compares the male and female smokers in Bhutan between 1960 and 2000. Overall, the male smoking declined, while female smoking first rose and then fellsmoking rates among men and women clearly declined over the time and the figure for male smokersthe ratio of male smokers decreased while female smoking rose until 1975 before decliningthe opposite was true in the case of female smokers. In 1960, six hundred men out of 1000 were smokers. This number dropped gradually to 500 by 1980 and continued to fallfell aftertill 1980. Afterwards, this trend accelerated and the ratio of Bhutanese male smokers plunged to just over 200 per 1000just over 20%. By contrastOn the contrary, the ratio of female smokers in 1960 was quite low. But in five years, the the figure for female smokersfemale smokers’ percentage climbed to around 15 and increased steeply to over 30%. Afterwards, the female smokers’ percentage inis Bhutan dropped gradually till 2000 when around two2 out of ten females smoked. At the start of the periodInitially, in 1960, the gap between the men and women smokers was huge but over time this gap narrowedover the time this gap reduced and almost a similar percentage of females and males in Bhutan smoked.
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response identifies the general fall in male smoking and the eventual narrowing of the gender gap, using a reasonable range of trend language to make the main comparison understandable. However, it misrepresents the female pattern and repeatedly treats per-thousand figures as percentages; the priority is to state that women’s smoking rose to a 1975 peak before declining and to report every value with the correct unit.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response covers both male and female trends and notes the narrowing gap, but the overview is partly inaccurate because women's smoking rose to a peak before falling rather than simply showing the opposite of men's trend. Several figures are reported as percentages instead of rates per 1000.
Describe the units consistently as smokers per 1000 people and state the key contrast: men declined steadily while women rose until 1975 and then declined.
Coherence and Cohesion
The report is organised as one paragraph with a basic overall statement followed by details. The sequence is generally chronological, but some references are confusing or repetitive.
Use separate paragraphs for the overview, male trend, female trend, and final comparison of the gap.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is adequate for trends, with words such as declined, climbed, and plunged. However, ratio and percentage are repeatedly used inaccurately for the chart's per-1000 measure.
Replace ratio and percentage with number, rate, or figure, and use precise trend verbs for gradual and steep changes.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Meaning is mostly understandable, but errors in verb forms, prepositions, articles, and sentence control occur regularly.
Check past-tense forms after continued to, and avoid switching between past and present when describing historical data.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The line graph below gives information about men and women smokers in Bhutan from 1960 to 2000.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.