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.
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The graph below shows the average amount of tea and coffee drunk per person per year in one country from 1990 to 2020.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
| Category | Coffee | Tea |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | 3.2 | 3 |
| 1995 | 3.8 | 2.9 |
| 2000 | 4.5 | 2.6 |
| 2005 | 5.2 | 2.2 |
| 2010 | 5.8 | 1.9 |
| 2015 | 6.1 | 1.6 |
| 2020 | 6.4 | 1.4 |
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
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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 line graph compares the amount of coffee and tea consumed per person each year in one country between 1990 and 2020, measured in kilograms.
Overall, coffee consumption rose steadily while tea consumption fell, so the gap between the two drinks widened considerably. By 2020 the average person drank more than four times as much coffee as tea.
In 1990 the two drinks were almost equally popular, with each person consuming 3.2 kg of coffee and 3 kg of tea. Coffee then grew in every period, reaching 3.8 kg in 1995 and 4.5 kg in 2000. The rise continued at a slightly slower pace, to 5.2 kg in 2005 and 5.8 kg in 2010, and the final figures were 6.1 kg in 2015 and 6.4 kg in 2020, exactly double the starting level.
Tea followed the opposite course. After a negligible fall to 2.9 kg in 1995, it declined more noticeably to 2.6 kg in 2000 and 2.2 kg in 2005. The downward trend continued to 1.9 kg in 2010 and 1.6 kg in 2015, and tea reached a low of 1.4 kg in 2020, which was less than half of the 1990 figure.
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| per capita consumption | the amount used per person |
| double | become twice as high |
| rise steadily | go up at a regular rate |
| decline gradually | fall slowly |
| overtake | become higher than |
| by the end of the period | at the final date shown |
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