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 average daily time spent on four phone activities by three age groups.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
| Age group | Calls | Messaging | Social media | Video |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16–24 | 8 | 75 | 130 | 95 |
| 25–44 | 22 | 60 | 70 | 45 |
| 45–64 | 30 | 35 | 28 | 20 |
| 65+ | 25 | 18 | 9 | 6 |
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 average number of minutes per day that three age groups spent on four phone activities.
Overall, younger people spent far more time on messaging, social media and video, whereas calls were most common among older users. Social media was the most time-consuming activity for the two youngest groups.
The 16–24 group spent 130 minutes per day on social media and 95 minutes on video, by far the highest figures in the table. Messaging took 75 minutes, while calls accounted for only 8 minutes. People aged 25–44 had much lower totals, with 70 minutes on social media, 60 on messaging and 45 on video, but calls rose to 22 minutes.
In the older groups, usage declined sharply for every activity except calls. The 45–64 group spent 35 minutes messaging, 28 minutes on social media and 20 minutes on video, while calls reached a peak of 30 minutes.
The 65+ group spent just 25 minutes on calls, 18 on messaging, 9 on social media and 6 on video. Calls were therefore their most time-consuming activity, and social media use was more than fourteen times higher among the youngest group than among the oldest.
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| daily phone use | time on phones each day |
| social media | websites for socialising |
| messaging | sending texts |
| the reverse pattern | the opposite trend |
| decline with age | decrease as people get older |
| minutes per day | daily time measure |
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