Task 1: two charts, no overview, and an unexplained cause
A Task 1 prompt gives a bar chart and a pie chart. The bar chart shows the percentage of household waste recycled in four countries in 2005 and 2020: Astoria 18% → 46%; Bravia 34% → 35%; Caldia 52% → 49%; Doria 9% → 28%. The pie chart shows the composition of household waste in Astoria in 2020: food 32%, paper 22%, plastic 18%, glass 12%, other 16%. The instruction is: "Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant." Candidates have 20 minutes and a 150-word minimum.
Candidate D writes 196 words in three paragraphs. Paragraph 1 describes the bar chart country by country in the order given, reporting all eight figures but making no overall statement. Paragraph 2 describes the pie chart clockwise from food, listing all five percentages. Paragraph 3 states: "This is because people in Astoria care more about the environment, which is why food waste is the biggest category."
1. Identify the single biggest scoring problem and write an overview that would fix it.
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The biggest problem is the missing overview - it caps Task Achievement before anything else is considered.
An overview is a statement of the main trends or differences across the whole data set, placed usually after the introduction. A country-by-country recount, however accurate, is "mechanical" description: that is the language of band 5. Band 6 requires "an overview with information appropriately selected". Without one, the script cannot reach the middle bands regardless of how good its sentences are.
Model overview: "Overall, recycling rates rose in three of the four countries between 2005 and 2020, with Doria's rate more than tripling, while Caldia was the only country where the figure declined. In Astoria, food and paper together accounted for more than half of household waste."
Why this works:
- It covers both charts, because both are part of the data set.
- It reports trends and contrasts, not every value: the general rise, the exception (Caldia), the largest change (Doria), and the dominant categories.
- It is placed immediately after the introduction, so the examiner can find it.
A practical tip: write the overview before the detail paragraphs. Candidates who leave it until the end frequently run out of time and lose the marks that were easiest to secure.
2. Which figures should be selected, which can be dropped, and how should the data be grouped?
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Selection principle: report the pattern and its exceptions, not the spreadsheet.
From the bar chart, keep:
- Caldia - highest in both years (52%, 49%) and the only fall.
- Doria - lowest in 2005 (9%) and the largest increase (to 28%, more than tripling).
- Bravia - essentially unchanged (34% → 35%), which is itself a main feature because it breaks the general rising pattern.
- Astoria - a strong rise (18% → 46%), useful as the comparison with Doria's steeper relative growth.
What can be dropped: the exact intermediate arithmetic ("an increase of 28 percentage points") for every country. Mentioning one or two precise differences is good; converting all four is noise.
From the pie chart, group rather than list:
- Dominant: food (32%) and paper (22%) together exceed half.
- Middle: plastic (18%), glass (12%).
- Residual: other (16%).
Language to use: "rose from 18% to 46%", "more than tripled", "remained broadly stable", "the only country to fall", "accounted for almost a third", "roughly twice the share of". Avoid "increased dramatically" repeated four times - vary the verb and quantify the change instead.
3. Paragraph 3 attributes the recycling figures to environmental attitudes. Why is that a problem, and what should replace it?
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It is a problem twice over: it is off-task and it is illogical.
Task 1 asks candidates to report what the data show. It does not provide, and cannot support, causes. Speculation invites two penalties: under Task Achievement, because explanation is not summary; and under Lexical Resource when the invented cause introduces vocabulary the candidate cannot control. A marker may also read it as a misunderstanding of the task, which is worse than a language slip.
It is also self-contradictory. High food waste in Astoria's bin does not demonstrate environmental concern - if anything, uneaten food is the category most associated with wasteful consumption. The sentence is a guess dressed as a finding.
Replacement - stay inside the data: "Food waste alone (32%) accounted for almost twice the share of plastic (18%), and together with paper made up 54% of the household total."
That sentence does the work Task 1 rewards: it selects, it compares, and it quantifies. If the candidate wants a closing sentence, it should compare rather than explain - for example linking Astoria's rising recycling rate to its waste profile only as an observation ("Astoria recycled 46% of household waste in 2020 while food remained its largest single category"), never as cause and effect.