The table below shows the primary funding sources of international students in the US during the years

2003/04 and 2013/14. Write a 150-word report for a university lecturer describing the data and make
comparisons where relevant.

The table shows how international students in the US funded their studies in the years 2003/04 and
2013/14. Overall, there was a noticeable trend towards sponsorship by foreign governments, foreign
universities, and current employers over the ten-year period.
First of all, the period 2003/04 to 2013/14 witnessed a significant rise in the number of international
students in the US, from 572,509 to 886,052, a rise of more than 50%. Given the large increase, were
there any changes in how foreign students paid for their studies?
The table shows that the two main funding sources were ‘Personal and Family’ and ‘US College or
University’, which together accounted for 90% of funding in 2003/2004. However, taken together, these
two sources had dropped to 84% by 2013/14.
At the same time, there was substantial growth in the numbers of students funded by ‘Foreign
Government or University’ and ‘Current Employer’, which saw increases of 383% and 390%
respectively. Even though they still accounted for only a small minority of funding, both sources
became more important to foreign students during the period.

Why Does This Task 1 Answer Get IELTS 9.0?

Task achievement: The sample answer identifies a major point of interest in the data and supports this
with relevant figures from the table.
Coherence and cohesion: The sample answer is organized into paragraphs which are connected
logically. There is an overall description at the beginning and end of the answer.
Lexical resource: The sample answer uses vocabulary appropriate to comparing data such as
‘accounted for’ and ‘witnessed a significant rise’. Native-like collocation is used throughout the model
answer.
Grammatical range and accuracy: The sample answer includes many examples of complex
sentences that combine a main point with supporting evidence in two clauses.
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
 The table below shows the sales made by a coffee shop in an office building on a typical
weekday.

Model Answer:

This table compares the different goods sold by a coffee shop which is located in an
office building during a typical weekday in correlation with the time in the day.
Firstly, coffee sales were maximum(265) in the morning from 7:30 to 10:30, decreased
steadily after 10:30 to reach less than 150 by 5:30, then rose to 200 in the evening. In
addition, Tea sales showed similar pattern to coffee, they stood at 110 in the morning,
less than half the coffee sales in the same period and fell to 35 between 2:30 and 5:30.
However, they almost doubled in the evening between 5:30 and 8:30.
On the other hand, pastries sales fluctuated throughout the day with the peak in the
morning 7:30 - 10:30 of about 275 and the bottom in the evening 5:30 - 8:30 of about 80.
Moreover, sandwiches sales in the period of 7:30 - 10:30 and 8:30 - 5:30 were similar,
50 and 40, respectively. Sandwiches sales were the highest between 10:30 and 2:30
(200 sandwiches), almost two times the sales in the evening.
Overall, it can be clearly seen that different goods experienced different patterns of sales
throughout the day.
The table shows the proportion of different categories of families living in poverty
in Australia in 1999.
Write a report for a university lecturer describing the information shown below.
Make comparisons where relevant.
You should write at least 150 words.

The table gives information about poverty rates among six types of household in
Australia in the year 1999.

It is noticeable that levels of poverty were higher for single people than for couples, and
people with children were more likely to be poor than those without. Poverty rates were
considerably lower among elderly people.

Overall, 11% of Australians, or 1,837,000 people, were living in poverty in 1999. Aged
people were the least likely to be poor, with poverty levels of 6% and 4% for single aged
people and aged couples respectively.

Just over one fifth of single parents were living in poverty, whereas only 12% of parents
living with a partner were classed as poor. The same pattern can be seen for people
with no children: while 19% of single people in this group were living below the poverty
line, the figure for couples was much lower, at only 7%.

(150 Word)
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The table illustrates the proportion of monthly household income five European countries spend on
food and drink, housing, clothing and entertainment proportion of household income five European
countries spend on food and drink, housing, clothing and entertainment.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where
relevant.

Write at least 150 Words.

Model Answer:
The table gives information about the percentage of household expenditure of five
nations in on different categories.
Overall, the most striking fact to emerge from the graph is that all countries allocate the
biggest part of their income to food and drink and housing.
In detail, France, Germany and the UK spend the highest percentage of their household
budget in housing at about a third of their total income. Food and drink account for the
second biggest share at about a quarter for these three countries. Clothing has the
lowest percentage of household income with 7%, 11%, and 15% for France, Germany
and the UK respectively.
On the other hand, Turkey and Spain had different spending proportion. At 36%, food
and drink represent the biggest share of expenditure in Turkey, followed by housing at
20%. The remaining percentages were for clothing and entertainment with
approximately 10%. Similarly, Spain spends most on food and drink with 31% and on
housing with 18% while it spends the smallest proportion on clothing with just 8%.
The table below gives information on consumer spending on different items in five
different countries in 2002.

Percentage of national consumer expenditure by category - 2002

The table shows percentages of consumer expenditure for three categories of products
and services in five countries in 2002.

It is clear that the largest proportion of consumer spending in each country went on food,
drinks and tobacco. On the other hand, the leisure/education category has the lowest
percentages in the table.

Out of the five countries, consumer spending on food, drinks and tobacco was
noticeably higher in Turkey, at 32.14%, and Ireland, at nearly 29%. The proportion of
spending on leisure and education was also highest in Turkey, at 4.35%, while
expenditure on clothing and footwear was significantly higher in Italy, at 9%, than in any
of the other countries.

It can be seen that Sweden had the lowest percentages of national consumer
expenditure for food/drinks/tobacco and for clothing/footwear, at nearly 16% and just
over 5% respectively. Spain had slightly higher figures for these categories, but the
lowest figure for leisure/education, at only 1.98%.
The table below gives information about languages with the most native speakers.
Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make
comparisons where relevant.
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
 The graphs show percentage of mobile phone owners using various mobile phone features.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make
comparisons where relevant.

The table provides information about the types of functions that were used by
mobile phone owners across seven categories in three specific years – 2006,
2008 and 2010. Overall, it can be observed that the most frequent mobile
phone usage was for making calls. It is also noticeable that there were no
figures provided for searching the Internet and recording video in 2006.
In each of these years, the use of mobile phones for calling was significantly
higher than the other six functions, with 100% usage levels in both 2006 and
2009 and 99% in 2010. The other three features which include photo taking,
sending text messages and playing music, all had a slight increase in the
percentage of usage frequency by the cell phone owners. In contrast,
recording video had the largest rise in usage frequency starting with 9% in
2008. By 2010, this figure went up fourth fold with 35% of the owners using
the phone for video recording.