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 energy used per person from three fuels in four countries.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
| Country | Oil | Gas | Coal |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canada | 29,000 | 21,000 | 3,000 |
| Germany | 14,000 | 11,000 | 7,000 |
| China | 6,000 | 2,000 | 15,000 |
| Nigeria | 1,300 | 900 | 0 |
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 energy used per person from oil, gas and coal in four countries, measured in kilowatt-hours.
Overall, Canada used the most oil and gas per person, while China was the only country that relied mainly on coal. Nigeria's consumption was very low for every fuel.
Canada's use of oil, at 29,000 kWh per person, was the highest on the table, and its use of gas, at 21,000 kWh, was also the highest. By contrast, its coal consumption was small, at 3,000 kWh. Germany had a more balanced profile, with 14,000 kWh of oil, 11,000 kWh of gas and 7,000 kWh of coal, the second-highest coal figure after China.
China's pattern was quite different. Coal was its main fuel, at 15,000 kWh per person, which was more than double its use of oil at 6,000 kWh and far above its gas use of only 2,000 kWh.
Nigeria used very little energy of any type. Oil consumption was 1,300 kWh and gas just 900 kWh, while no coal was used at all. Its consumption of oil, the largest of its three fuels, was less than half of Canada's use of coal.
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| energy use per person | consumption by an individual |
| rely on | depend on |
| kWh | kilowatt-hours, a unit of energy |
| many times higher | much greater |
| the only exception | the one different case |
| no coal at all | zero coal |
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