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 people choosing each type of holiday in three age groups.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
| Category | 18–30 | 31–55 | 56+ |
|---|---|---|---|
| Beach | 25% | 40% | 30% |
| City break | 25% | 20% | 15% |
| Adventure | 35% | 10% | 3% |
| Cultural | 10% | 20% | 32% |
| Staying home | 5% | 10% | 20% |
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
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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 people in three age groups who chose each of five types of holiday.
Overall, preferences differed noticeably by age. Younger people favoured adventure and city breaks, those aged 31–55 preferred the beach, and the oldest group were the keenest on cultural holidays.
Among 18–30-year-olds, adventure holidays were the most popular choice, at 35%, followed by beach and city breaks, each on 25%. Only 10% preferred cultural trips and just 5% would stay at home.
The 31–55 group favoured the beach most strongly, with 40% choosing it, which was the highest single figure in the chart. City breaks and cultural holidays were each selected by 20%, while adventure was much less popular, at 10%, and the same proportion chose to stay at home.
People aged 56 and over had a different pattern. Cultural holidays were the first choice, at 32%, closely followed by the beach at 30%. This group was the least interested in adventure, at only 3%, but the most likely to stay at home, at 20%, which was four times the figure for the youngest group.
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| holiday type | kind of break |
| the most popular | favoured by the most |
| preferences differ | choices are different |
| adventure holiday | travel with activities |
| city break | short trip to a city |
| stay at home | remain in one's residence |
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