The pie charts below show the different types of courses, which were followed by the students during the years of 1984, 1994 and 2004.
Sample Response
The pie charts give details about the different types of courses that students studied in 1984, 1994, and 2004.
Overall, it can be seen that the most common mode of studystudying was via face-to-face courses, whilewas via face to face courses, while online courses were the least common way to study. It is also noted that in 1984 online courses were not available.
In 1984, 67% of all students studied via face to face courses, while 20% studied via correspondence, and 13% studied via mixed-media courses13% mixed media courses. Online courses were not available at the time. Ten10 years later, studying face to face courses was slightly less popular, at 54%, while the percentage of students studying by correspondence remained at 20%.15% of students studied mixed media courses and 11% of students studiedwere now studying via the internet.
Face-to-face study continuedStudying face to face continued to become less popular by 2004, with 40% of students choosing that mode of study, while mixed media courses had become far more popularwere becoming far more popular, at 35%. Studying online and by correspondence had also decreased in popularityhad both decreased in popularity also, reaching 10% and 15% respectively.
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response gives a clear overview and accurately covers every course type across all three years, with well-selected figures and useful comparisons. Organisation is strong and meaning is consistently clear, though some repetitive phrasing, minor omissions, and awkward constructions limit linguistic polish; the best improvement would be to vary comparison structures and refine sentence-level accuracy while preserving the concise coverage.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The overview and detailed figures accurately identify the dominant modes and the principal changes across all three years.
Refine the overview by explicitly highlighting the sharp rise in mixed-media study alongside the decline in face-to-face courses.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response progresses logically from the overview through the three years, with clear paragraphing and generally effective linking.
Reduce repeated use of while and maintain clean spacing between figures and subsequent sentences.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is accurate and sufficiently varied for the task, although course and study phrasing is repeated several times.
Use a wider but natural range of references such as mode, proportion, enrolment, and method without sacrificing precision.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex comparisons are mostly well controlled, with only occasional omissions, awkward phrasing, and punctuation lapses.
Check elliptical clauses for missing verbs and remove redundant combinations such as both together with also.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The pie charts below show the different types of courses, which were followed by the students during the years of 1984, 1994 and 2004.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.