Samples / Task 1 Academic report / Table / Band 7

Household Recycling Rates in Five Countries (2005 and 2020)

An IELTS Academic Task 1 answer describing recycling data with characteristic band 6.5 grammatical, lexical, and cohesive features.

The question

The table below shows household recycling rates as a percentage of total waste in five countries in 2005 and 2020. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words.

Household recycling rate as a percentage of total waste. Figures are given in the caption below. — Household recycling rate as a percentage of total waste
Country | 2005 | 2020
Germany | 52 | 67
South Korea | 44 | 62
United Kingdom | 27 | 44
United States | 31 | 32
Turkey | 8 | 12

The table compare the household recycling rates as a percentage of total waste in Germany, South Korea, United Kingdom, United States, and Turkey in 2005 and 2020. Overall, there was an increase in the recycling percentage in all the five country over the fifteen-year period. Germany had the highest percentage in both year, while Turkey had the lowest percentage of waste recycling throughout the period. Looking at the countries with high recycling rates, Germany started with 52% in 2005 and increased to 67% in 2020, which was a significant rise of 15 percents. South Korea also showed a big improvement, where the percentage went up rapidly with 18% from 44% in 2005 to 62% in 2020. The United Kingdom also experienced a notable growth, with its recycling rate rising from 27% to 44% in 2020, which was the same percentage as South Korea had in 2005. In contrast, the other two countries showed much slower progress in recycling their waste. The United States had a percentage of 31% in 2005 but it only showed a minor increase of 1% during this fifteen years period, reaching 32% in 2020. Turkey also had very low figures, starting at just 8% in 2005 and rising slightly to 12% in 2020, which was the lowest recycling rate among all the country listed.

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This answer was written by a language model to a real exam question, then scored by Bandly against the four public band descriptors. The band is a software estimate. No examiner has marked it, and the band a real examiner would award may differ. Scored with google/gemini-3.5-flash on 2026-09-08.

Estimated overall

Mean of the four criteria, rounded the way the exam rounds it.

Task Achievement 8

Band 8, You cover all requirements of the task with accurate data and a clear overview, but the response could extend the key features a little more fully to reach band 9.

Coherence and Cohesion 7

The response logically organises information and ideas with clear progression, but there is some under-use of cohesive devices, particularly in linking sentences within paragraphs.

Lexical Resource 6

You use an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, but there are some inaccuracies in word choice and word formation that prevent a higher score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy 7

The response uses a variety of complex structures and produces frequent error-free sentences, but a few errors in grammar and punctuation, such as the use of 'percents' and 'country' instead of 'countries', prevent a higher score.

What would take this higher

To improve your score, you should focus on your lexical resource, which is currently the weakest area due to several word choice and word formation inaccuracies. Specifically, you can elevate this criterion by replacing incorrect pluralizations such as "15 percents" with "15 percent" and ensuring singular nouns like "country" are correctly pluralized to "countries" when referring to multiple nations. Eliminating these repetitive vocabulary slips and using more precise collocations, such as "increased by 18 percent" instead of "went up rapidly with 18 percent", would help demonstrate the control needed for a higher band.

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