Write your own answer first20 minutes and at least 150 words, like the real test. Use the editor below, then compare with the Band 8 model answer.
Bar charts are the most common Academic Writing Task 1 question. They compare amounts across categories (countries, age groups, years), so your job is mainly to compare, not to list every number. This guide gives you a structure that works for any bar chart, a practice question to try in 20 minutes, a Band 8 model answer and the vocabulary examiners look for.
How Task 1 is marked#
You have 20 minutes and must write at least 150 words. Task 1 is worth one third of your Writing score, and is marked on four criteria: Task Achievement (an accurate overview and key features), Coherence and Cohesion (logical grouping and linking), Lexical Resource (precise vocabulary) and Grammatical Range and Accuracy.
The 4-paragraph structure for a bar chart#
| Paragraph | What to write | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Introduction | Paraphrase the question in one sentence: what, where, when. | 1 sentence |
| 2. Overview | The 2–3 most important features, with no numbers. | 2 sentences |
| 3. Body 1 | The first group of details, with figures and comparisons. | 3–4 sentences |
| 4. Body 2 | The second group of details. | 3–4 sentences |
How to describe a bar chart#
- Find the biggest contrasts first. Which bars are highest and lowest? Which categories behave in opposite ways? That is your overview.
- Group the data, don’t go bar by bar. Organise the body by series (e.g. one paragraph per activity) or by category (e.g. younger vs older groups), whichever shows the comparisons more clearly.
- Compare with numbers. Every comparison should include figures: “14 hours, more than twice the time spent watching TV (6 hours)”.
- Check whether there is a time element. If the categories are years, use trend language (rose, fell); if not, use comparison language only.
Practice question#
The bar chart below shows the average number of hours per week that people in four age groups spent on three leisure activities in 2025.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
- Social media
- Watching TV
- Sport and exercise
Show the data as a table
| 16–24 | 25–39 | 40–59 | 60+ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Social media | 14 | 9 | 6 | 3 |
| Watching TV | 6 | 8 | 11 | 17 |
| Sport and exercise | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 |
The figures are invented for practice, like real IELTS Task 1 questions.
Essay practice editor
Model answer (Band 8 style)
Write your own answer first, then compare structure and vocabulary. Task 1 (Academic): bar chart · 202 words.
Show the model answerShowHide
The bar chart illustrates how many hours per week people in four age groups spent on social media, watching TV, and sport and exercise in 2025.
Overall, time spent on social media fell steadily with age, while TV viewing showed the opposite pattern, rising sharply among older people. Sport and exercise took up relatively little time and remained fairly stable across all age groups.
Looking first at social media, 16- to 24-year-olds spent 14 hours a week on it, more than twice as long as they spent watching TV (6 hours). This figure dropped to 9 hours for people aged 25–39 and to 6 hours for those aged 40–59, before reaching a low of just 3 hours among the over-60s.
TV viewing, by contrast, increased in every age group, from 8 hours for 25- to 39-year-olds to 11 hours for the 40–59 group and 17 hours for people over 60, making it by far the most time-consuming activity for the oldest group. Sport and exercise, meanwhile, accounted for between 3 and 5 hours a week in every group, peaking at 5 hours among the youngest respondents and dipping to 3 hours in the 40–59 age group.
A clear overview
Paragraph 2 gives the three main patterns (down with age, up with age, stable) without any numbers. This is what examiners check first for Task Achievement.
Logical grouping
One paragraph follows social media, the other TV and sport, so every age group is compared inside each paragraph.
Selective data
Not every bar is mentioned with the same weight; the extremes (14 vs 3 hours, 17 hours) get the attention.
Comparison language
*more than twice as long as*, *by contrast*, *by far the most*, *peaking at*, *dipping to*, all used accurately.
Want your own writing scored? With Worddemy Pro, paste it into the app and get a band score with feedback on all four criteria.
Useful language for bar charts#
| Purpose | Words and phrases |
|---|---|
| Introduce the chart | The bar chart illustrates / compares / gives information about… |
| Compare two figures | more than twice as many/much as · three times as long as · slightly higher than · considerably lower than |
| Highest / lowest | the highest figure was… · peaked at · by far the most popular · the lowest proportion was recorded in… |
| Contrast | by contrast · whereas · while · on the other hand · the opposite pattern |
| Similar figures | roughly the same · similar · comparable · remained fairly stable across… |
Common mistakes#
- Describing every bar in order (“Group 1 spent 14, 6 and 5 hours. Group 2 spent…”). Group and compare instead.
- No overview, or an overview hidden at the end. Put it in paragraph 2 so the examiner cannot miss it.
- Using trend words (increased, fell) when the chart has no time period. Here “increased” is fine only because it describes a pattern across age groups; with countries, say “was higher in…”.
- Giving your opinion or explaining causes (“because young people like phones”). Task 1 is a report of the data only.
More Task 1 guides#
Each guide has a practice question, a 20-minute editor and a Band 8 model answer:
New to Task 1? Start with the complete IELTS Writing Task 1 guide, and learn how to describe trends and choose the right tense.