Academic Writing 4 — a line graph and an advantages-disadvantages essay

A fourth Academic Writing paper, built around the Task 1 type candidates meet most often and describe least well: a line graph over time. It shows the percentage of adults in one country who went to the cinema, to live music and to a museum or gallery at least once a month, every two years from 2014 to 2024. The figures are also given as a table, so nothing depends on reading values off a line by eye.

Three lines over six points is enough data to drown in. Task achievement rewards selection: the overview first — the cinema highest throughout, all three falling sharply in 2020 and recovering, only live music ending above its earlier level — and then the figures that prove it, not every value in turn. The crossover matters too: live music, below museums and galleries in 2018, is above them by 2022, and an answer that misses it has missed one of the main features.

The graph also contains a trap. Every line collapses in 2020, and most readers will think they know why. The graph does not say, and a sentence giving a cause is a claim the data does not support; the key points check that the fall is described, not explained. Under lexical resource the answer needs the language of trend — rose, plunged, recovered, overtook, peaked — and the difference between per cent and percentage points: from 48 to 53 per cent is five percentage points, not five per cent.

Task 2 asks whether the advantages of working for several employers on short contracts outweigh the disadvantages. An "outweigh" question is not satisfied by a fair list of both sides. It asks for a verdict — which side weighs more, and for whom — and the verdict needs to be visible from the introduction and held to the end. The key points check that both sides are developed and that the essay actually weighs them.

Task 1 is at least 150 words in about 20 minutes; Task 2 at least 250 words in about 40, worth twice as much. You print the sheet, write by hand, photograph the pages and upload them. The check goes task by task — length first, then task achievement or response, coherence and cohesion, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy — and names what your answer did not do rather than issuing a band. A flashcard deck of trend and weighing language comes with the paper, each card with an example sentence.

The country and all its figures are invented. No IELTS® material is reproduced.

• Write a line-graph overview that names the leading category, the shared pattern and the exception before any figure
• Select the figures that support the main trends instead of listing every value
• Report a crossover between two lines and when it happened
• Describe a sharp fall without inventing a cause the graph does not give
• Use varied trend language accurately: rose, plunged, recovered, overtook, peaked, levelled off
• Distinguish a change in percentage points from a change in per cent
• Use the past perfect with 'by' for a change completed before a date
• Answer an 'outweigh' question with a clear verdict stated in the introduction and held to the end

Practice paper written by Zestly, based on the ielts.org description of the Academic Writing test (Task 1: graphs, charts or tables; Task 2: comparing and evaluating an argument). All figures are invented.