Pick out the main features of this pie 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 pie charts below show how water was used in one country in 1980 and 2020.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
| Category | 1980 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture | 70% | 52% |
| Industry | 18% | 20% |
| Households | 8% | 15% |
| Energy | 4% | 13% |
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 pie charts compare how water was used in four sectors in one country in 1980 and 2020.
Overall, agriculture was the biggest user of water in both years, but its share fell significantly, while the other three sectors all took a larger proportion in 2020 than in 1980.
In 1980 agriculture accounted for 70% of water use, far ahead of industry with 18%, households with 8% and energy with 4%. By 2020 the share of agriculture had dropped to 52%, a fall of 18 percentage points, though it was still more than half of the total.
The other sectors expanded. Industry increased only marginally, from 18% to 20%, but households almost doubled their share, from 8% to 15%. The most rapid growth occurred in the energy sector, whose share more than tripled, from 4% to 13%.
As a result, the gap between agriculture and the other sectors narrowed considerably. In 1980 agriculture used almost four times as much water as industry, whereas in 2020 it used only about two and a half times as much, and households and energy had become much more comparable.
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| water use | how water is used |
| dominant share | biggest proportion |
| more than triple | become over three times |
| almost double | rise nearly twice |
| rise slightly | go up a little |
| remain the largest | stay the biggest |
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