The three pie charts below show the changes in annual spending by a particular UK school in 1981, 1991 and 2001.
Sample Response
The pie charts give information on the spending of a UK school in three different years at ten-year intervalswith the 10 years interval starting from 1981. In 1981According to the given data, in 1981 the UK school spent 40%the UK school’s 40% expense was for teachers’ salariesteacher’s salary while 15% was spent on furniture and equipment, and another 15% on resources such as books15% expenses were both for the school equipment and for other resources like books. 2% of its expenditure was allocated to insurance2% of it expenses was made for the insurance and the remaining 28%and remaining 28% was for the other workers’ salariesother staff’s salary. After 10 years the spending on teachers’ salariesexpenses in teachers’ salary increased by 10 percentage pointsincreased by10% while the spending on furniture and equipment fell by 10 percentage pointsexpenses on school furniture reduced by 10%. Spending on resources such as booksResources and books related expenses increased by 5% while other workers’ salariesother staffs’ salary fell by 6 percentage points in 1991decreased by 6% this year. Spending on insurance increased by one percentage pointOnly one percent expenses increased for the insurance. In 2001, the school spent 45% on teachers’ salariesthe expense of this school in this year was 45% for the teachers. The insurance cost increased to 8% while the furniture-and-equipment spendingfurniture related expenses increased to 23% and other workers’ salaries and resource spendingstaff salary and resource purchasing expenses decreased to 15% and 9% respectively.
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response reports almost all percentages and year-to-year changes accurately, giving a reliable chronological account of the school's expenditure. Its main limitation is the absence of a clear overview identifying teachers' salaries as the largest category throughout and the contrasting trends in insurance, other staff, resources, and equipment; frequent language errors also weaken precision. Prioritise a comparative overview before presenting selected figures in grouped paragraphs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The detailed figures are largely accurate, but the response lacks an overview of the dominant category and the principal trends across the period.
State that teachers' salaries remained the largest expense, insurance rose steadily, and the other categories either declined overall or fluctuated.
Coherence and Cohesion
The chronological sequence is easy to follow, but a single dense paragraph and list-like reporting weaken grouping and comparison.
Add a separate overview, then group categories with similar trends instead of describing every year as a list.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is adequate for percentages and spending, but heavy repetition and inaccurate forms such as expense was for reduce precision.
Use standard phrases including accounted for, expenditure on, rose to, fell by, and remained the largest share.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Meaning is generally clear, but frequent errors in possessives, articles, agreement, spacing, and sentence structure limit control.
Check plural possessives and complete noun phrases, especially teachers' salaries, other workers' salaries, the school's expenditure, and its expenses.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The three pie charts below show the changes in annual spending by a particular UK school in 1981, 1991 and 2001.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.