Writing Task 1 line graph: a band 6 and a band 7.5 report on the same data

Task 1 is where candidates lose easy marks, because it looks like a description exercise and it is graded as a selection exercise. It is also the smaller half of the Writing mark — how the two tasks are weighted explains why twenty minutes is the right budget. The examiner is not checking whether you mentioned every number. The examiner is checking whether you saw what the graph is about, said so in an overview, and then chose the figures that prove it. Below are two reports on the same data, one a 6 and one a 7.5.

The data

The task: The graph shows the percentage of households in one country with each of three types of internet connection between 2005 and 2025. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. The line graph plotted these figures:

Before reading either report, decide what the two main features are. There are two, and the whole grade rests on naming them.

The band 6 report

The line graph shows the percentage of households with three types of internet connection, dial-up, fixed broadband and mobile-only, in one country from 2005 to 2025. The data is given every five years.

In 2005, 38% of households had dial-up, which was the most popular type, 12% had fixed broadband and only 1% had mobile-only. In 2010, dial-up decreased to 15% and fixed broadband increased dramatically to 45%. Mobile-only increased to 4%. In 2015, dial-up decreased to 4% and fixed broadband increased to 62%, while mobile-only increased to 12%. In 2020 dial-up was 1% and fixed broadband reached the peak at 66%. Mobile-only increased to 24%.

Finally, in 2025 dial-up was 0% and fixed broadband decreased slightly to 61%. However, mobile-only increased significantly to 35%, which is the highest figure for this type.

In conclusion, dial-up decreased over the period, while fixed broadband and mobile-only increased. Fixed broadband was the most popular type in 2025.

155 words.

The band 7.5 report

The graph shows how households in one country connected to the internet over twenty years, comparing the share using dial-up, fixed broadband and a mobile connection alone.

Two changes stand out. Dial-up, the most common connection in 2005, had all but disappeared within fifteen years, replaced by fixed broadband, which became the dominant type by 2010 and stayed so. Meanwhile mobile-only connections, negligible at the start, grew steadily throughout and by 2025 were the only category still rising.

The switch from dial-up to broadband was rapid: dial-up fell from 38% of households to 15% in the first five years alone, while broadband almost quadrupled from 12% to 45% over the same period. Broadband then climbed more slowly to a peak of 66% in 2020 before slipping back to 61%.

Mobile-only households, by contrast, rose from just 1% in 2005 to 12% a decade later and then accelerated, reaching 35% by 2025. The fall in broadband after 2020 coincides with this acceleration, which suggests that mobile connections had begun to replace fixed ones rather than merely supplement them.

177 words.

The grades

Task 1 is graded on Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy, weighted equally.

Task Achievement: the overview decides it

The band 6 report has an overview, in the last paragraph, and it is the reason the report is a 6 rather than a 5. But it is the weakest possible overview: "dial-up decreased, the others increased" is true of the lines' directions and says nothing about the story. It also contains an error of emphasis: fixed broadband did not simply increase, it rose and then fell, and the report's own numbers show that.

The 7.5 report's second paragraph is what the descriptor calls a clear overview of main trends: the replacement of dial-up by broadband, then the rise of mobile as the only line still climbing. Everything after it is evidence for those two claims. That is band 8 Task Achievement: key features selected and highlighted, with data used to support them.

Selection, not coverage

Count the figures. The band 6 report quotes fifteen numbers, every cell in the table, in the order of the years. The 7.5 report quotes nine, and each one is there because it proves a point: 38 to 15 and 12 to 45 to show how fast the switch was, 66 to 61 to show the peak and the dip, 1, 12 and 35 to show the acceleration. The examiner reads a full list of figures as a candidate who could not decide what mattered, which is precisely what Task Achievement measures — and selection becomes the whole task when two charts share one question.

Coherence and Cohesion

The band 6 report is organised by year, which is the graph's organisation, not the writer's. The result is five sentences that begin "In 2005", "In 2010", "In 2015", and nothing connects one to the next except time passing. Band 6: information is arranged, but progression is mechanical.

The 7.5 report is organised by idea: overview, the broadband switch, the mobile rise. The paragraphs refer to each other ("Meanwhile", "by contrast", "coincides with this acceleration"). Band 7: logical organisation and a clear progression.

Lexical Resource

The band 6 report uses increased seven times and decreased four. Its only variety is the adverbs: dramatically, slightly, significantly, which are the words every candidate knows. Adequate, band 6.

The 7.5 report describes the same movements with had all but disappeared, replaced by, became the dominant type, negligible, almost quadrupled, climbed, slipping back, accelerated. None of these is unusual; all of them are precise about size and speed, which is what a Task 1 vocabulary is for. Band 7.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

The band 6 report is accurate and simple, and simple is the problem. Nearly every sentence is subject, verb, number. The one relative clause ("which is the highest figure for this type") is correct. Accurate but limited: band 6.

The 7.5 report handles past perfect for sequence ("had all but disappeared", "had begun to replace"), participle phrases ("the most common connection in 2005", "negligible at the start"), and a hedged inference in the last sentence ("which suggests that"), which is the correct register for a claim the data implies but does not state. A wide range with almost no errors: band 8.

What to change in your next report

1. Write the overview second, and write it before the numbers. Two sentences, no figures, naming the main trend and the main contrast. If you cannot write it, you have not yet understood the graph and are not ready to describe it.
2. Choose a third of the figures and drop the rest. Every number you quote should support a sentence in the overview.
3. Organise by idea, not by year or by line. A paragraph per trend, not a paragraph per column.
4. Replace every second increased with a word that says how much or how fast.

Then write the same report again with those four changes, and compare the two — plans with AI-graded Writing will mark both attempts against the same four criteria.