Pick out the main features of this table 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 table below shows the percentage of the workforce employed in agriculture, industry and services in five countries.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
| Country | Agriculture | Industry | Services |
|---|---|---|---|
| Uzbekistan | 25 | 26 | 49 |
| Egypt | 20 | 26 | 54 |
| India | 43 | 25 | 32 |
| Poland | 8 | 31 | 61 |
| USA | 2 | 19 | 79 |
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 table shows the percentage of the workforce employed in agriculture, industry and services in five countries.
Overall, services employed the largest share of workers in four of the five countries, and the proportion working in agriculture was highest in India. India was the only country where farming remained the main source of jobs.
India had the highest agricultural employment, at 43%, compared with 32% in services and 25% in industry. Uzbekistan and Egypt had similar structures to each other. In Uzbekistan 25% of workers were in agriculture, 26% in industry and 49% in services, while the Egyptian figures were 20%, 26% and 54%.
Poland and the USA had far smaller agricultural sectors. In Poland just 8% of people worked on farms, and 31% worked in industry, the highest industrial share on the table, with services employing 61%. The USA had the most service-oriented workforce, with 79% in services, 19% in industry and only 2% in agriculture.
Industry employed between 19% and 31% of workers in all five countries, and was most stable in the first four, ranging from 25% to 31%.
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| workforce | all workers |
| employed in | working in |
| agriculture | farming |
| the services sector | jobs such as retail and banking |
| with the exception of | apart from |
| fairly similar | roughly the same |
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