A practice table for IELTS writing task 1, academic paper. This is a great table to help you practise organising information into paragraphs and to practise highlighting key features in an overview.
Take your time to review the table below. You should spend at least 3 mins spotting key features and deciding how to organise information into body paragraphs. You should never spend more than 20 mins writing your report. Please remember this is a report and not an essay.
IELTS Table: Spending Income on Categories
The table below is very challenging because it has a lot of categories both along the top and side of the table. With so much data, it is important to take your time to understand the categories. You can see there are adults, men, women, children, boys and girls. Think about what their spending patterns are before you start writing. For tips about approaching IELTS Tables, before you tackle this one, click here: IELTS Table Tips & Models.
Write your own answer before checking the model answer provided below.
Model Table Answer
Before you look at the model answer:
- Have you completed your answer? Make sure you have reviewed your writing before checking the model answer.
- Did you put all key features into the overview? It is the most important paragraph so don’t think it is a small statement.
- Did you group information together in your body paragraphs? By grouping categories together, you don’t miss them out completely.
If you are happy with your answer, compare it with the model table answer below.
Click here: Model Answer
Model Answer
The table illustrates the percentage of income that was spent on food, electronic equipment, music and videos by both adults and children, divided by gender, in the UK in 1998.
Overall, adults spent less of their whole income on the four items compared to children. Adult spending was mainly on food, with women spending double that of men on that item, and little was spent on other items. For children, a large proportion of their money was spent on music and spending on other items was also significant with the least spent on food.
For adults, 25% of their money went on food with women using up to 39% of their income on it, compared to only 14% for men. Expenditure on electrical equipment accounted for 10% of men’s income but only 1% for women. Less than 5% was spent on all other items by both genders.
In terms of children, expenditure on music was 39%, with girls spending 40% (2% more than boys). Spending on electrical equipment was 23% overall, although girls only used 5% of their money on this. For videos, both genders used around 18% of their income. However, food accounted for only about 10% of spending in total and by each gender.
Notes on Table Strategies:
- Word length – tables are often the longest type of writing task 1 to write because there is so much to give. for most writing task 1, your aim is between 170 and 190 words. For some tables with a lot of columns and numbers, you might go up to 200 or even 210 (absolute max 215). But to go over 215 words would mean you haven’t grouped information together properly and are getting lost in too much detail. You are actually being marked on your ability to highlight key features and group information together. So, you’ll get marked down for a long writing task 1 report. The model table above was 206 words. Return now to the model above and see precisely what I did and didn’t highlight, and how I did it.
- Use good linking words such as
- in terms of
- regarding
- compared to
- as opposed to
- however
- on the other hand
- you are being marked on your use of linking words.
- Paraphrase carefully. If you use poor word choices when you paraphrase, you’ll produce too many errors which will result in a lower score. Be careful!
- Keep your sentence structures complex, but not too long. A very long sentence will often be marked down in IELTS. So, aim for just one or two clauses at most.
Review: The key to a good report is that information is easy to read and understand. Sentences are complex, but information is simply organised and presented so that the reader can follow easily it and grasp the content quickly. For more free tips, see this page: https://ieltsliz.com/ielts-writing-task-1-lessons-and-tips/
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I hope you found this useful.
