Writing Task 1: Bar Chart: Question 8
Syllabus W.task1
The bar chart below shows the average number of hours per day that people in five age groups spent using the internet, on weekdays and at weekends, based on a national digital-habits survey. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Each age group has two bars, one for average weekday hours and one for average weekend hours.
| Age group | Weekday (hours) | Weekend (hours) |
|---|---|---|
| 13-17 | 4.2 | 6.5 |
| 18-24 | 5.8 | 7.1 |
| 25-40 | 3.9 | 4.8 |
| 41-60 | 2.1 | 2.9 |
| 61+ | 1.0 | 1.3 |
Write at least 150 words.
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Worked solution
Task overview
With ten values across a two-variable, five-category chart, this is the most demanding data set in the set: a Band 9 answer must report both the ranking across age groups and the weekday-to-weekend change within each age group, without letting the report balloon past the target length.
Why this model answer scores Band 9
- Task Achievement: The overview isolates the two genuinely significant patterns (the 18-24 group leading throughout, and weekend usage rising for every group without exception) and every figure and calculated difference (2.3, 1.3, 0.3 hours) is derived correctly from the table.
- Coherence & Cohesion: The report is split into a weekday paragraph and a weekend paragraph, with “again led”, “also increased moderately”, and “despite” used to carry the comparison forward from one sentence to the next without repetitive restarts.
- Lexical Resource: Precise quantifying language (“less than a fifth of”, “the largest weekend jump of any group”, “a small rise”) replaces vaguer alternatives like “much more” or “a bit higher”, showing control of less common vocabulary.
- Grammatical Range & Accuracy: Accurate use of comparative clauses with ellipsis (“to 4.8 and 2.9 hours respectively”) and concessive subordination (“despite a small rise… from its weekday figure”) demonstrates a wide grammatical range with no errors.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
- Reporting only the weekday or only the weekend column, which covers half the chart and cannot reach the higher band scores for task achievement.
- Describing the 41-60 and 61+ figures as “similar” when 2.1 and 2.9 hours are roughly double the 1.0 and 1.3 hour figures for the oldest group.
- Writing “internet use doubled at the weekend for every group”, which is true only for 13-17 year olds (4.2 to 6.5) and not for the other four groups, whose weekend rise is much smaller proportionally.