IELTS Pie Chart Sample Answer: How to Group Percentages Instead of Listing Them

Pie charts look like the friendliest question in Task 1. There are no trends to describe and no dates to compare. That is exactly why so many answers score in the low sixes: the writer lists every slice in order, adds up to a hundred per cent, and calls it a description.

Listing is not describing. This post shows the same chart answered twice, with the same data, and explains where the second version earns its marks.

The chart

Task 1. The pie charts below show the main reasons why people in one country moved home in 2005 and in 2025. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Six categories across two charts is twelve numbers. You have about 170 words. Reporting all twelve is possible; reporting all twelve well is not.

Version one: the listing answer

The pie charts show the reasons why people moved home in 2005 and 2025. In 2005, the largest reason was needing a larger property at 34%. The second reason was to be closer to work at 22%. Family reasons were 17% and lower housing costs were 14%. A better neighbourhood was 9% and other reasons were 4%. In 2025, lower housing costs were the largest reason at 28%. Needing a larger property was 19% and other reasons were also 19%. Family reasons were 15% and closer to work was 11%. A better neighbourhood was 8%. In conclusion, the reasons for moving home changed between 2005 and 2025.

118 words.

Every number in that answer is correct. It still sits around band 6, and here is why.

There is no overview. Task Achievement, the first of the four public band descriptors, asks for the main features to be selected and summarised. A summary sentence that says what the data as a whole shows is the single highest value sentence in a Task 1 answer, and this response does not have one. The final sentence gestures at change without saying what changed.

Nothing is compared. The question says "make comparisons where relevant". Twelve figures are stated and none is placed next to another.

The sentence shape never varies. Nine consecutive sentences follow the pattern "X was Y%". Grammatical Range and Accuracy, the fourth criterion, is about variety of accurate structures, and this answer has one structure.

It is underlength. The requirement is at least 150 words. At 118 it is short by more than twenty per cent, which carries a penalty on top of everything above.

Version two: the grouping answer

The two pie charts compare the reasons given for moving home in one country in 2005 and 2025. Overall, the picture reversed over the twenty year period. In 2005 people moved mainly because of what they needed from a property or a job, whereas by 2025 the dominant reason was financial. Housing cost was the only major category to rise, while both space and proximity to work fell by roughly half. In 2005, practical requirements accounted for well over half of all moves. The need for a larger property was the leading reason at 34%, followed by the wish to live closer to work at 22%. Cost came fourth on the list at just 14%, behind family reasons at 17%. By 2025 this order had changed considerably. Lower housing costs had doubled to become the largest single reason at 28%, while the need for space had almost halved to 19% and moving closer to work had fallen to 11%. Two categories barely moved: family reasons remained steady at around 15% and the desire for a better neighbourhood stayed close to 8% in both years. The "other" category grew sharply from 4% to 19%, suggesting that a wider range of smaller motives had appeared by the later year.

205 words.

What the second version does differently

It groups before it reports. "Practical requirements" covers space and commuting in one phrase. "Two categories barely moved" handles family reasons and neighbourhood together. Grouping is the skill the question is testing when it says "selecting".

The overview names the pattern, not the numbers. Notice the second paragraph contains almost no figures. It says what happened: needs based reasons gave way to a financial reason. An overview full of percentages is just the body paragraph arriving early.

Comparisons are built into the sentences. "Behind family reasons at 17%", "while the need for space had almost halved". Each figure is anchored to another figure rather than floating alone.

Movement is described with verbs. Doubled, halved, fell, remained steady, grew sharply. A pie chart with two time points is a change question wearing a circle.

The language that does the work

Approximating is allowed and often reads better than exact figures repeated twelve times. "Just under a third" for 34% is accurate and it varies your sentences. Do not approximate so loosely that the number becomes wrong: 34% is not "around forty per cent".

A four step method for any pie chart

1. Count the categories and find the biggest and smallest in each chart. Thirty seconds.
2. Look for one pattern that covers several slices. Which direction did things move? Which group grew, which shrank, which stayed still?
3. Write the overview first, in one or two sentences, with no percentages if you can manage it.
4. Write two body paragraphs, either one per chart or one per group of categories. Put a comparison in every second sentence.

If there is only one pie chart and no second year, step two changes: look for the split between the large slices and the long tail of small ones. "Three categories account for almost three quarters of the total" is an overview. "The largest was 34%" is not.

Do this today

Take the table at the top of this post and write only the overview, twice, in under five minutes. One version with no numbers at all, one with a maximum of two. Compare them and keep whichever states the pattern more clearly. The overview is the sentence most worth practising in isolation, because it is the one that separates a listing answer from a describing answer.

When you write the full response, paste it into Bandly to get an estimated band for each of the four criteria along with the sentences behind each estimate, which is a quick way to check whether your overview is doing its job or just repeating the body.