Pick out the main features of this bar chart for your overview, write your report on a 20-minute timer, then compare it with a band-8 model answer.
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The chart below shows the percentage of household income spent on five categories in three countries.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
| Category | Japan | Egypt | Canada |
|---|---|---|---|
| Housing | 25% | 18% | 32% |
| Food | 23% | 40% | 12% |
| Transport | 10% | 8% | 16% |
| Leisure | 12% | 4% | 10% |
| Education | 8% | 6% | 4% |
GoPrep wrote this practice question in the style of the exam. It is not an official IELTS question.
An overview names the main trends or differences in one or two sentences, without numbers. These are the features a strong answer picks out:
Spend the first few minutes planning, then write.
0 words of 150 minimum
Your answer stays on this page only. Copy it before you leave.
Write your own answer first, then compare: how it answers the exact question, what each paragraph does, and which phrases you could borrow.
The bar chart compares the percentage of household income that families in Japan, Egypt and Canada spend on housing, food, transport, leisure and education.
Overall, housing was the largest item in Canada and Japan, whereas Egyptian households devoted by far the greatest share of their income to food. Education took the smallest share in most cases.
Egypt's spending on food reached 40%, the highest single figure in the chart, and well above Japan's 23% and Canada's 12%. In contrast, Egyptians spent comparatively little on housing, at 18%, while Canadians paid the most, with 32% against Japan's 25%.
Differences in the other categories were smaller. Canada devoted 16% of income to transport, compared with 10% in Japan and 8% in Egypt. Leisure accounted for 12% of Japanese spending and 10% of Canadian spending, but only 4% in Egypt. Education was the least significant category for Canadians, at 4%, and Japan spent the most on it at 8%, ahead of Egypt at 6%. Japanese households spread their money most evenly, with no category below 8%, and housing took more than any other category in both Japan and Canada.
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| household income | total money a family earns |
| spend on | use money for |
| account for | make up a proportion |
| the largest share | the biggest percentage |
| by contrast | in contrast |
| the least | the smallest amount |
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