IELTS Bar Chart Sample Answers: Band 6 vs Band 8, Sentence by Sentence

Most bar chart answers lose their marks in the same three places. There is no overview. Every bar is reported in turn, in the order it appears on the page. And the only two verbs used are "increase" and "decrease", eleven times each.

This post takes one bar chart and answers it twice. The first answer is the version most candidates write. The second is the version that scores higher. Then we compare them sentence by sentence, so you can see exactly which words are doing the work.

The band labels here are illustrative teaching labels, not a mark from a qualified examiner. Use them to see the difference between the two answers, not as a certified score.

The chart we are answering

Task 1. The bar chart below shows the percentage of households that owned a car in four countries in 2000 and 2020. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Four countries, two years, eight numbers. That is all the data you have, and 150 words is more than enough to report it well.

Answer A, the version most candidates write

The bar chart shows the percentage of households which owned a car in four different countries in the years 2000 and 2020.

In 2000, Germany had 74% of households with a car. In 2020, this number increased to 82%. Japan had 66% in 2000 and this increased to 71% in 2020. Brazil had 28% in 2000 and this increased to 52% in 2020. India had only 9% in 2000 and this increased to 34% in 2020.

In conclusion, all four countries increased their car ownership between 2000 and 2020, and Germany was the highest country in both years while India was the lowest country in both years.

118 words.

Answer B, the version that scores higher

The chart compares the proportion of households owning a car in Germany, Japan, Brazil and India in 2000 and 2020.

Overall, car ownership rose in all four countries over the twenty year period, but the pattern of growth divided them into two groups. The two wealthier countries began high and grew slowly, while the two developing economies began far lower and grew rapidly, narrowing the gap between the four without closing it.

Germany and Japan were already well ahead in 2000, at 74% and 66% respectively. Both edged upwards over the following two decades, reaching 82% and 71%, gains of only eight and five percentage points.

Brazil and India followed a different path. Brazil almost doubled its figure, from 28% to 52%, while India's rose from 9% to 34%, close to a fourfold increase and the steepest growth on the chart. Despite this, India remained the lowest of the four in 2020, still some way below the Japanese figure from twenty years earlier.

163 words.

Sentence by sentence

Why the overview matters more than anything else

Task Achievement, the first of the four public band descriptors for Task 1, asks whether you selected and reported the main features. A main feature is a pattern, not a number. "All four rose, but the two developing economies rose far faster" is a pattern. "Germany was 74% then 82%" is a number.

An answer with no overview struggles to move past band 5 for Task Achievement no matter how clean the grammar is. An answer with a clear overview has satisfied the most heavily weighted part of the task in one sentence.

Write it second, immediately after the introduction, and start it with the word "Overall". You are not being marked on subtlety here. You are being marked on whether the reader knows the main point.

Grouping is the skill being tested

Answer A reports four countries in four separate sentences because that is the order they appear on the chart. Answer B reports them in two pairs because that is how the data actually behaves.

The grouping question is always the same: which bars are doing the same thing? Here, Germany and Japan are high and flat. Brazil and India are low and steep. Once you see that, the body of the answer writes itself in two paragraphs.

If no grouping exists, group by size instead: the largest, then the middle, then the smallest. Anything is better than left to right.

The language differences, criterion by criterion

Lexical Resource. Answer A uses "increased" four times. Answer B uses "rose", "edged upwards", "almost doubled", "growth" and "gains". None of these are rare words. They are ordinary words chosen precisely, which is what Lexical Resource rewards. Memorising a list of impressive synonyms is not the same thing, and misused rare words score lower than common words used correctly.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Answer A is eight sentences with almost identical structure. Answer B varies: a "while" clause for contrast, a participle phrase ("narrowing the gap"), a "despite this" opener, and a comparison built with "respectively". Range means variety of accurate structures, not long sentences.

Coherence and Cohesion. Answer A links with nothing at all. Answer B uses "Overall", "Brazil and India followed a different path", and "Despite this". Each of these tells the reader what relationship the next sentence has to the last one. That is what cohesion is, and it is not the same as sprinkling "Moreover" between paragraphs.

Four things you can do on your next bar chart

1. Cover the chart and write one sentence. If you cannot say what the chart shows in one sentence without looking at it, you do not have an overview yet.
2. Circle the bars that behave alike. Two groups is usually right for four bars. Three groups for six or more.
3. Give every paragraph one job. Introduction, overview, group one, group two. Four short paragraphs beat one long one.
4. Count your comparison words. If "compared with", "while", "whereas" and "respectively" appear zero times, you have described rather than compared, and the task asked you to compare.

Try rewriting Answer A yourself using those four moves before you look at Answer B again. The data is above, so you have everything you need.

When you have written your own version, you can paste it into Bandly for an estimated band on each of the four criteria, along with the sentences behind each judgement, which is usually faster than trying to mark your own overview by eye.