IELTS Academic Writing Task 1. Sample 1


You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The pie graphs below show the result of a survey of children's activities. The first graph shows the cultural and leisure activities that boys participate in, whereas the second graph shows the activities in which the girls participate.

Write a report describing the information shown in the two pie graphs.

Write at least 150 words.


How to answer this task?

  1. Introduce the pie charts.

    Write what do they summarize.

  2. Write a general overview.

    Write in brief the main trends.

  3. Describe the first chart.

    Tell about the activities on the boys' chart and their popularity. Use linking structures and vocabulary to describe graphs.

  4. Describe the second chart.

    Tell about the activities on the girls' chart and their popularity. Use words from academic wordlist.


Model answer

The two pie charts draw the conclusion of a survey of boys' and girls' cultural and leisure activities.

Overall, equal quantities of both sexes enjoyed listening to music, but a dramatically larger number of girls liked reading. There were also many differences in terms of the children's preferred sports.

Turning to the first chart, we can observe that boys prefer playing computer games (34% participation rate) than taking other activities. Playing basketball comes as the second most popular leisure, practiced by almost a third of male children. Basketball is followed by soccer, which is exercised by 17%. Skateboarding and listening to music are less preferable activities, chosen by 11% and 10% of boys respectively. Reading, the least popular cultural activity among boys, represents only two percent.

Taking a closer look at the second chart, we can see that girls' most preferred activity is dancing, being 27% of the total. In contrast to the boys' preferences, reading is chosen by more than a fifth of all girls. Although percentage of female children who play computer games is roughly twice less than that of boys (16%), this activity is third most popular on the girls' chart. With a slight difference between computer games and netball, the latter is practiced at 15% rate. Similarly to skateboarding popularity among boys, 11% of girls go in for gymnastics. Listening to music comes as the least popular leisure, with a proportion of 10%, equal to those on the first chart.

(244 words)


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