Writing Task 1: Bar Chart: Question 2
Syllabus W.task1
The chart below shows the percentage of adults in three age groups who took part in five leisure activities at least once a week in Bregonia in 2023. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words.
| Activity | 18–34 (%) | 35–54 (%) | 55+ (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Running/jogging | 34 | 22 | 9 |
| Cycling | 28 | 26 | 19 |
| Team sports | 31 | 14 | 3 |
| Swimming | 15 | 18 | 21 |
| Yoga/pilates | 12 | 17 | 14 |
The bar chart is a grouped bar chart with the five activities on the horizontal axis and one bar per age group for each activity, with the percentage of adults participating at least weekly shown on the vertical axis.
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Worked solution
Examiner notes: why this is a band 9 response
Task Achievement
The overview correctly identifies the single most important pattern in the data (a general decline with age, with swimming as the sole exception) before any individual figures are given, showing genuine selection rather than description of every bar. All fifteen data points are accounted for across the response, either individually or as part of an accurate group statement (e.g. cycling’s “narrow” range), and the most extreme comparison (team sports) is highlighted as the overview promises.
Coherence & Cohesion
Activities are grouped by the shape of their trend (steep decline, moderate decline, stability, and increase) rather than being described in the order they appear in the table, which produces a logical progression through the paragraphs. Cohesive devices such as “followed a similar downward pattern” and “even as other activities fell sharply” link sentences without resorting to a repeated list of basic connectors.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a range of precise trend language (“steepest decline”, “rose steadily”, “remained comparatively popular”, “ranging narrowly”) instead of relying only on “increased” and “decreased”. Comparative quantities are expressed both as percentages and as an approximate ratio (“more than ten times fewer”), showing flexible, accurate use of numerical language.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
Complex sentence structures are used with full control, including participial clauses (“overtaking both team sports and running in popularity among the oldest group”) and comparative clauses (“even as other activities fell sharply”). Verb tenses are handled correctly throughout in this past-time report, and there are no errors of agreement, article use or word form.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
See commonMistakes above: the most damaging is assuming a uniform decline-with-age pattern and therefore misreporting swimming’s genuinely upward trend, band 9 responses check every category individually before generalising.