The bar chart shows the percentage of young people in higher education in 2000, 2005 and 2010.
Sample Response
The bar chart compares four countriesfour different countries by the proportion ofin terms of the proportion of young people inentering higher education in 2000, 2005 and 2010in three years, 2000, 2005 and 2010.
Overall, of the three countries, country D had the highest percentage of young people enrolling in higher education in all three years, while participation levels in country B were lowest. In addition, country A experiencedcountries A and D experienced the largestgreatest increase in higher-education participation among young peopleyoung people’s participation in higher education.
Looking first at countries A and D, in 2000, 4560% of young people in country D participated in higher educationentered university education, whereas Country A's figure was lowerwhile the figure for country A was much lower, at only about 3538%. By 2010A decade later, these figures had risen torose significantly to 6080% and around 5759%, respectively.
Turning to the two remaining nations, we can see that, in country C,young people’s university participation rose slightly by 2%, from 50% in 2000 to 52% in 2010. The figure for country B, by contrast, remained at 40% over the period shown, despite a small drop of 2%, down to 38% in 2005.
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response is clearly organised and uses varied, generally accurate language to compare the countries across the three years. However, most of the supporting figures are inconsistent with the chart, including the values reported for countries A, C and D, and the overview incorrectly identifies country B as lowest in every year. Recheck every bar systematically and base each comparison on the chart's actual values.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response identifies some broad trends, but most reported figures are inaccurate and the claim that country B was always lowest is incorrect.
Record each country's three values directly from the chart before selecting trends and comparisons.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response has a clear overview and logically grouped detail paragraphs, with cohesive devices used fluently and unobtrusively.
Preserve this effective grouping while ensuring each paragraph's comparisons are supported by accurate data.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and precise for describing proportions, participation, changes, and comparisons, with only a minor spacing slip.
Continue using this range while checking that strong terms such as significantly accurately reflect the scale shown.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of sentence structures is used with strong control, and errors are rare and do not impede communication.
Proofread final drafts for small presentation slips such as the missing space after country C.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The bar chart shows the percentage of young people in higher education in 2000, 2005 and 2010.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.