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IELTS Writing Samples

IELTS essay samples (writing task 2), report and letter samples (writing task 1) with Band Scores, marked by IELTS teachers, including comments and suggestions on how to increase your score

IELTS Report, topic: Bar charts describing the hours worked by men and women in 3 countries

This is a model answer for an Academic Writing Task 1 from the IELTS exam in the USA, shared recently. This response is likely to get Band 8 or 8.5 in IELTS.

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task

The charts below show the average hours worked last year by full time and part time employees in 3 countries. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words

IELTS Writing Task 1 Bar Charts of Hours Worked By Men and Women in 3 Countries

Band 8.5 Model Answer

The bar charts show the average number of hours that full-time and part-time employees worked in the Netherlands, the UK and Greece in the previous year.

Overall, what immediately stands out is the fact that the number of hours worked by male and female workers was relatively equal for both types of work, and that full-time employees worked almost twice as much as part-time employees.

Taking a closer look at the numbers for full-time positions, the figures for both men and women ranged between 35 to 40 hours per week. Male workers in the UK were the only ones to exceed 40 hours a week. The figures for the Netherlands were the lowest for both genders, at around 35 hours weekly.

Moving on to part-time employment, the difference between the number of hours worked by men and women is more apparent in this chart. People from the Netherlands worked the fewest hours with men spending 10 hours, and women – roughly 15 hours per week at work. The UK had almost equal figures for both genders, around 17 hours a week, while the figures for Greece were slightly higher; the male workers there did around 20 hours per week and female – a touch above 20.

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IELTS essay, topic: In many countries a lot of food is wasted (reasons and solutions)

This essay topic was seen in a recent IELTS test in South Korea

In many countries, a lot of food is wasted. Why do people waste food? How can we reduce the amount of food waste?

Sample Band 8 Essay

Despite the fact that millions of people in the world go hungry every day, a surprisingly large amount of food gets wasted daily in certain parts of the world. In my opinion, the main reason for this is that people in the first-world countries tend to only buy food that is aesthetically pleasing, and fortunately, there are some ways to tackle this issue.

It is shockingly sad to know that large amounts of perfectly edible food in the form of fresh produce get sent to landfills, and the main reason for this is that these foods do not meet the standards of perfection set for fruits and vegetables by consumers and grocery stores. For example, veggies and fruit that are misshapen or have a few spots on them are still good enough to eat, yet they are often left on shelves to rot in favour of something that looks less damaged. In addition, a lot of customers confuse the ‘best by’ and ‘use by’ dates, thinking that foods that have passed their ‘best by’ dates are no longer fit to eat. Another major reason for food wastage is that people often overestimate the amount of produce they require on a weekly or monthly basis, and most of it ends up getting thrown out instead of being used.

There are many ways to reduce the amount of food being wasted, and I think one of the best ideas is to increase people’s awareness of just how much good food is disposed of, only because of our superficial biases as to how food should look. Raising the awareness of the staggering number of people that go hungry in third-world countries would make it harder to throw away an apple just because it is a little bruised. Also, teaching people how to better plan their monthly food requirements would help them not to overspend on food that they do not need; it would be great for the environment and their budget. The role of the government in this endeavour is indispensable as such task would be too great for any smaller organisation.

To conclude, the wasting food is a serious issue that merits increased awareness from both people and the leaders of the world. It is unacceptable to discard any food when there are so many people who are starving, and hopefully our joint effort can help improve the current situation.

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