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User-written IELTS example

Writing Academic Task 1 Band 4.0 Example

Original task prompt, user essay, band score, and related examples in the same report workspace.

184 words AcademicTask 1Multiple Graphs
Task 1

Illustrative target band for this original model answer.

Plan your answer

Try your own response before reading the samples.

Ideas to explore

  • Further study was the leading destination for both graduates and postgraduates.
  • Voluntary work was the least common option in each group.
  • Graduate counts exceeded postgraduate counts in all four categories, with the biggest absolute difference in further study.

Suggested structure

  1. Paraphrase the chart topic and specify the year and population.
  2. Give an overview of the shared highest and lowest categories.
  3. Report graduate figures in rank order, grouping the leading choices and the smaller categories.
  4. Report postgraduate figures in the same order to make comparisons easy.
  5. Close with the most notable difference between the two groups.
Useful vocabulary & examples
the most common destination
The option chosen by the largest number of people.

Further study was the most common destination for both groups.

ranked second
Was the second-highest category in a set of figures.

Part-time work ranked second for graduates.

by contrast
A linking phrase used to introduce a noticeably different figure or fact.

By contrast, only 3,500 graduates undertook voluntary work.

the largest difference
The greatest gap between two compared figures.

The largest difference between the groups was in further study.

Task Prompt

The charts below show what UK graduate and postgraduate students who did not go into full-time work did after leaving college in 2008. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
IELTS Writing Task 1 visual

User Essay Analysis

Review the public answer with report-style highlights.

Band 4.0

The given 2 bar charts illustrate what did graduate and postgraduate students from UK after finishing school in 2008 From the graduate’s chart it’s clearly seen that the higher numerous of students which consist 29,665 decide to study further. Meanwhile 3,500 graduates did voluntary work while 17,735 did only part-time work. As it shown by the postgraduate chart, further study was also the most common choice, at 2,725 students. Part-time work was close behind, with 2,535, while 1,625 were unemployed. Voluntary work was the least common destination, with only 345 postgraduate students.

Overall, further study was the leading choice for both groups, and voluntary work was the least popular. The number of graduates in every category was much larger than the number of postgraduates, especially for further study. Among graduates, unemployment (16,235) was slightly lower than part-time work, but both figures were far below further study. For postgraduates, part-time work and further study had similar totals, with a difference of 190 students. In both groups, the number choosing voluntary work was much lower than the other options.

Targeted Improvement Tips

1
Write a one-sentence overview immediately after the introduction, identifying further study as the leading choice and voluntary work as the least common for both groups.
2
Group the data by student type and compare the two largest categories within each group: 29,665 versus 17,735 for graduates, and 2,725 versus 2,535 for postgraduates.
3
Before submitting, check indirect-question word order, article use with “the UK,” passive forms, and full stops between sentences.

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