IELTS Academic Writing practice

The line graph compares the proportion of electricity generated from renewable sources in two regions between 2000 and 2020, with figures shown at five-year intervals.

Overall, both regions increased their reliance on renewable electricity. Region A had the higher share throughout, although B experienced the larger proportional increase from a much lower starting point. The gap between them widened during the first decade before narrowing in the second.

In 2000, renewable sources accounted for 20% of electricity generation in A, twice the figure for B. By 2005, the shares had risen to 25% and 15% respectively, leaving the difference unchanged at ten percentage points. A then recorded its sharpest increase, reaching 40% in 2010, while B rose more gradually to 20%. This produced the largest gap shown, at twenty points.

Over the remaining ten years, A continued to grow, reaching 45% in 2015 and 50% in 2020. B increased more rapidly during this period, moving first to 35% and then to 45%. Consequently, A ended only five points ahead. Across the full period, A gained thirty percentage points, whereas B gained thirty-five.

The bar chart compares the percentages of students choosing online courses, evening classes and weekend classes at a college in 2015 and 2025.

Overall, online courses became the most popular choice, replacing evening classes. Both classroom options lost a share of students, although evening classes remained more popular than weekend classes in both years.

In 2015, half of the students chose evening classes. This was the largest proportion, followed by weekend classes at 30%. Online courses accounted for only 20%, so their share was 30 percentage points lower than that of evening classes. Together, the two classroom options attracted 80% of students.

By 2025, the proportion choosing online courses had risen to 45%, an increase of 25 percentage points. In contrast, evening classes fell to 35% and weekend classes dropped to 20%. The decline was greater for evening classes, at 15 percentage points, compared with 10 for weekend classes. Online courses therefore finished 10 percentage points ahead of evening classes, while the combined share of the two classroom options fell to 55%.

The table compares average weekly household waste in four categories in 2018 and 2025, measured in kilograms per household.

Overall, total waste decreased, with reductions in every category except plastic. Food remained the largest component, while paper and glass recorded the greatest proportional falls, both halving over the period.

Paper and glass followed similar patterns but differed in the size of their reductions. Paper waste dropped from 4 to 2 kilograms per week, accounting for half of the overall four-kilogram decline. Glass fell from 2 to 1 kilogram and remained the smallest category. Together, these two materials decreased from 6 to 3 kilograms per household.

Food waste declined less sharply, from 6 to 5 kilograms. Despite this reduction, it still exceeded every other category in 2025 and represented nearly half of the final total of 11 kilograms. Plastic, by contrast, was unchanged at 3 kilograms. As a result, it overtook paper to become the second-largest category, even though its own amount did not rise. Across all four materials, weekly waste fell from 15 to 11 kilograms.

The pie charts compare the distribution of a household's monthly budget across housing, food, transport and other spending in 2010 and 2025.

Overall, housing took the largest share in both years and became considerably more dominant by 2025. Food and transport each accounted for a smaller proportion, while the share assigned to other expenditure remained unchanged. Together, the reductions in food and transport exactly matched the increase in housing.

In 2010, housing represented 35% of the budget, followed by food at 30%. Transport accounted for a further 20%, and the remaining 15% was allocated to other items. Food and transport together therefore absorbed half of the total, fifteen percentage points more than housing alone.

By 2025, the housing share had risen to 50%, an increase of fifteen percentage points. Food fell to 20% and transport to 15%, declines of ten and five points respectively. Other spending stayed at 15%, equal to transport in the later year. Housing consequently matched all the other categories combined. These charts describe proportions only: without the total budget in either year, they do not show whether the amount of money spent on food or transport actually decreased.

The diagram outlines a clinic's appointment-booking procedure, showing how an initial request is processed according to whether the patient's preferred time is available.

Overall, the procedure has a common starting stage followed by two possible routes to confirmation. The requested appointment can be confirmed immediately if it is available; otherwise, confirmation depends on the patient's acceptance of an alternative.

The process begins when a patient submits a request. Clinic staff then check availability, which determines the next step. Where the preferred time is free, staff send confirmation directly, and the procedure ends after only three stages. No further response from the patient is required on this branch.

Where the requested time is unavailable, the clinic first offers a different appointment. Unlike the direct route, this branch includes an acceptance stage: the patient must agree to the proposed alternative before confirmation is sent. Both branches therefore reach the same final action, but the second takes five stages and requires an additional exchange between clinic and patient. The diagram describes only the route in which the alternative is accepted; it shows no procedure for a patient who refuses the new time.

The maps illustrate changes to a park between 2010 and 2025. The park kept its rectangular boundary and southern entrance, but several features inside it were replaced.

Overall, the redevelopment introduced facilities for visitors while preserving the pond and the main north–south path. The most substantial changes were in the western half, where a car park became a garden and a previously open lawn was occupied by a playground.

In 2010, the car park stood in the north-west corner, opposite a pond in the north-east. A lawn occupied the south-west, while trees covered the south-east. Visitors entered from the south and could follow a straight central path towards the northern boundary. No other facilities are shown on the earlier map.

By 2025, a garden had replaced the car park, and a playground had been built on the former lawn. The trees in the south-east had given way to a café, whereas the pond remained in its original position. The entrance and central path were also unchanged. Thus, the later layout offered three new amenities without expanding the park or moving its main entrance.

Online courses allow students to learn without attending a classroom. This can make education easier to access, especially for people with jobs or family commitments. However, studying away from a college can also make it harder to stay focused and to communicate with other learners.

One main advantage is the time and money saved on travel. A student who lives far from a college can use the time normally spent on a bus to complete an assignment, and they also avoid the cost of daily tickets. Recorded lessons offer another benefit, because students can watch them when they are free. For example, someone with an evening job could watch a lecture in the morning and pause it to take notes. This flexibility is particularly useful for students who cannot follow a fixed timetable, although live online classes still require attendance at set times.

A disadvantage is that learners need to manage their own attention. At home, messages, games or family activities may interrupt a lesson, and without a teacher nearby, a student might put off difficult work until an assignment is due. Online study can also reduce informal contact with classmates. A learner watching recordings alone cannot simply turn to the person sitting beside them and ask for help. Discussion groups and regular online meetings can reduce this problem, but students must make an effort to join them.

In conclusion, online education can reduce travel costs and fit around work, but it also demands self-discipline and planned communication. It is therefore most useful when learners have a suitable place to study and the course offers regular opportunities to ask questions.

When deciding between public transport and road expansion, cities should usually give priority to public transport. Better services can widen access to work and reduce dependence on cars, although investment must deal with the reasons why people currently avoid buses or trains.

The strongest argument is access. Residents who cannot afford a car or are unable to drive still need reliable routes to workplaces, colleges and essential services. Increasing frequency can be particularly valuable where a missed bus means a long wait. For instance, a worker finishing a late shift may be able to use a bus if services continue beyond normal office hours, whereas simply adding vehicles to an already frequent daytime route would do less for that worker. Spending should therefore target gaps in coverage and operating hours.

Public transport may also relieve congestion, but only if it offers a practical alternative to driving. A bus carrying fifty passengers uses road space far more efficiently than the same people travelling in separate cars. However, an unreliable bus stuck in traffic is unlikely to attract regular drivers, so dedicated bus lanes and dependable connections may be needed alongside extra services. These improvements give travellers a reason to change their habits rather than merely asking them to do so.

Spending on roads remains necessary for maintenance, emergency vehicles and deliveries, and a particular bottleneck may justify a limited expansion. Nevertheless, widening roads throughout a city is costly and takes space that could be used for homes or footpaths, without solving the lack of alternatives to driving.

Overall, I largely agree that public transport deserves more money than new roads, provided that essential road maintenance is protected. The aim should be reliable access for as many residents as possible, rather than expanding either network without considering how it will be used.

One response to plastic waste is to make disposable products more expensive; another is to provide convenient substitutes. Higher prices can discourage wasteful purchases, but in my view affordable alternatives should come first, with charges used selectively once shoppers have a genuine choice.

Supporters of higher prices argue that people often use disposable plastic because its cost is barely noticeable. A separate charge makes that cost visible and may encourage people to reuse a bag or container they already own. This can be effective where avoiding the charge requires only a small change in habit. However, charging for essential packaging is less convincing when shoppers cannot buy the product in any other form. In that situation, the policy raises household costs without necessarily reducing plastic use.

Better alternatives address this weakness by making a different behaviour possible. A refill station, for example, allows customers to reuse a bottle instead of buying a new one each time. Its success still depends on practical details: it must be conveniently located, competitively priced and easy to use. An environmentally attractive option that requires an extra journey or costs considerably more is unlikely to become a routine choice for most people.

These points suggest a sequence rather than a choice between two separate policies. Businesses and public authorities could first improve access to reliable substitutes, and then introduce targeted charges for avoidable disposable products. This would keep the incentive created by prices while reducing the burden on people whose options are limited. It would also make the purpose of the charge easier to explain.

Overall, higher prices have a useful supporting role, but they cannot make up for a lack of alternatives. Priority should go to making reuse practical, with financial incentives reinforcing that change rather than replacing it.

Employers should make physical activity easier during the working day, especially for staff who sit at a desk for long periods. However, encouragement is only valuable when employees have the time and freedom to take part; an exercise scheme that ignores working conditions risks becoming yet another demand on them.

The most useful measures remove practical barriers. Many staff would like to move more but feel unable to leave their desks while colleagues remain visibly busy. A clearly permitted activity break, supported by managers who respect it, can solve that problem. For example, allowing a team to take a short walk during an existing break offers a simple option that requires no equipment or sporting ability. The point of the example is not that walking suits everyone, but that the employer makes a manageable activity compatible with ordinary work.

That opportunity should not become a test of commitment. Employees differ in health, mobility and personal preferences, and they should not have to explain private circumstances in order to opt out. Participation must therefore remain voluntary, with an ordinary rest break as an equally acceptable choice. Team competitions or public rankings of who exercises most would undermine this principle if they made non-participants feel less valued.

Workload matters just as much. Permission to exercise offers little benefit if an employee must then work through lunch to finish the same tasks. Managers need to consider staffing and deadlines so that the break is genuinely available. This may be less visible than launching a fitness challenge, but it decides whether the policy actually changes employees' working day.

I therefore agree that employers should encourage activity, as long as this means widening choice and removing barriers. Success should mean that staff can take a suitable activity break without any penalty, rather than that everyone joins the same programme.

Working from home should be a normal right for office employees whose duties allow it, rather than a special favour. I would nevertheless distinguish a default from a requirement: staff should keep access to a workplace, and employers should be able to ask for shared attendance for particular tasks.

For work that depends on long periods of individual concentration, compulsory daily attendance can impose costs without improving the result. An analyst writing a report may gain little from commuting only to spend the day working alone at a desk. Allowing that work to be done remotely gives the employee more control over interruptions and removes unnecessary travel. The case rests on the nature of the task, however, not on an assumption that every home is quieter or better equipped than an office. Access to a suitable workplace must therefore remain available.

The strongest objection concerns activities in which colleagues need to solve problems together. A new team planning a project, for example, may have to revise several connected decisions quickly. Working in the same room can reduce the effort of arranging separate conversations and help newcomers understand how the team works. This supports regular occasions for working together; it does not show that everyone needs to attend every day regardless of their duties.

A workable policy would therefore give teams flexibility by default, together with a clear process for deciding when presence is useful. Managers should explain the purpose of shared days and judge employees by the work they complete, rather than treating visible attendance as evidence of productivity. Employees should also be able to work from the office without having to prove that their home is unsuitable.

I therefore largely agree that remote work should be the normal arrangement, with clear exceptions. Its value lies in matching working arrangements to tasks and circumstances, while keeping the cooperation that some activities require.

A council's culture budget should mainly support activities that residents can take part in regularly, while leaving room for larger events that offer a clear public benefit. In my view, the choice should depend on what each type of activity makes possible, rather than on audience size or neighbourhood scale alone.

Large events can give residents experiences that small groups cannot easily provide. A free festival might bring a professional performance to people who would otherwise face ticket and travel costs, while attracting audiences from across the town. The fact that it lasts only a weekend does not cancel out that benefit. At the same time, a high attendance figure says little about which residents were left out, or whether the event took money from more valuable year-round activities. The real question is what extra access the spending creates.

Regular neighbourhood activities offer a different advantage: participation can deepen over time. In a weekly music workshop, residents may progress from attending sessions to helping to organise them, developing both skills and friendships through repeated contact. That continuity is a strong reason to protect a basic level of local funding. Being small, however, does not guarantee being open to everyone. An established group can become closed to newcomers, so funded programmes should show how new people can join and stay involved.

I would therefore secure funding for accessible, ongoing activities before paying for a limited programme of larger events. Each proposed event should explain what audience or cultural opportunity it adds, rather than competing with local groups only on the number of people it attracts. Reviewing who takes part, and who does not, would help councils make this comparison fairly.

This approach gives neighbourhood activities priority because of their continuity, while keeping a justified place for major events. It recognises that the two make different contributions and asks both to show their value to the public.