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Line graph: Life expectancy at birth

Pick out the main features of this line graph for your overview, write your report on a 20-minute timer, then compare it with a band-8 model answer.

WRITING TASK 1

Line graph

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The graph below shows life expectancy at birth in Europe (for women and men) and in Sub-Saharan Africa between 1950 and 2020.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.

Life expectancy at birth
Line graph: Life expectancy at birth (years). The values are in the data table below.years020406080100195019601970199020052020
  • Women (Europe)
  • Men (Europe)
  • Sub-Saharan Africa
Show data table
Life expectancy at birth (years)
CategoryWomen (Europe)Men (Europe)Sub-Saharan Africa
1950645937
1960686340
1970726744
1990777050
2005807352
2020837761

GoPrep wrote this practice question in the style of the exam. It is not an official IELTS question.

What your overview should say

An overview names the main trends or differences in one or two sentences, without numbers. These are the features a strong answer picks out:

  1. 1Overall, life expectancy rose for all groups, with European women living longest and Sub-Saharan Africa lowest throughout.
  2. 2European women rose from 64 to 83 years and men from 59 to 77, so women consistently outlived men by around five to seven years.
  3. 3Sub-Saharan Africa rose from 37 to 61 years, the biggest gain at 24 years, narrowing the gap with Europe.

Write it on the clock

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20:00

0 words of 150 minimum

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Band-8 model answer

Write your own answer first, then compare: how it answers the exact question, what each paragraph does, and which phrases you could borrow.

Show model answer (196 words)

The line graph shows life expectancy at birth for women and men in Europe and for the population of Sub-Saharan Africa between 1950 and 2020.

Overall, life expectancy rose in all three groups. Women in Europe lived longest throughout, while Sub-Saharan Africa had by far the lowest figures but made the largest gains over the seventy years.

In Europe, women's life expectancy increased from 64 years in 1950 to 72 in 1970 and 77 in 1990, before reaching 80 in 2005 and 83 in 2020. Men's figures were consistently lower, at 59 in 1950, 67 in 1970 and 70 in 1990. They then rose to 73 in 2005 and 77 in 2020. The gap between the sexes was 5 years in 1950, widened to 7 years in 1990 and 2005, and then narrowed slightly to 6 years in 2020.

Sub-Saharan Africa began at just 37 years in 1950, over 20 years below the European figures. It improved to 40 in 1960 and 44 in 1970, then 50 in 1990. Progress stalled in the following period, reaching only 52 in 2005, but it then accelerated sharply to 61 in 2020, a rise of 24 years in total.

Useful vocabulary

PhraseMeaning
life expectancyaverage number of years a person lives
at birthmeasured from the time of birth
outlivelive longer than
increase by X yearsgo up by that number
narrow the gapreduce the difference
consistentlyat all times

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