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 number of tourists visiting a small island resort between 2008 and 2020.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
| Category | Domestic tourists | Overseas tourists |
|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 120 | 60 |
| 2010 | 135 | 80 |
| 2012 | 150 | 130 |
| 2014 | 170 | 210 |
| 2016 | 190 | 290 |
| 2018 | 210 | 340 |
| 2020 | 95 | 40 |
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 presents the number of domestic and overseas tourists who visited a small island resort each year between 2008 and 2020.
Overall, both categories grew strongly until 2018 before collapsing in 2020, and overseas visitors expanded much faster than domestic ones, so that they became the larger group.
In 2008 there were 120,000 domestic tourists, double the 60,000 overseas arrivals. Domestic numbers then rose steadily, reaching 170,000 in 2014 and a peak of 210,000 in 2018. Overseas tourism grew far more steeply. It climbed to 130,000 in 2012, overtook the domestic figure in 2014 with 210,000 against 170,000, and continued to 290,000 in 2016 before peaking at 340,000 in 2018.
The situation changed dramatically between 2018 and 2020. Domestic visitors fell by more than half, from 210,000 to 95,000. The decline in overseas tourism was much sharper still: the figure plunged from 340,000 to only 40,000, well below its starting level of 60,000. As a result, domestic tourists once again outnumbered overseas visitors in 2020, by a wide margin.
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| tourist arrivals | the number of visitors reaching a place |
| rise sharply | increase quickly |
| plunge | fall suddenly and steeply |
| a dramatic collapse | a very sudden, large fall |
| overseas visitors | tourists from other countries |
| outnumber | be greater in number than |
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