In this post: The three essays side by side, a rewrite of the coffee essay, and bar chart sentence patterns with a checklist.
Bar Chart Samples · 3 parts
- 1. The short answer, band 6 essay
- 2. The band 6.5 and 7.5 essays
- 3. Side by side, rewrite, checklist (you are here)
✦ In this post
5. The three essays side by side: why a correct overview is not enough
1. TA is a score for the whole essay, not for the overview
The coffee essay is the clearest evidence: a perfect overview, and TA was still 5. On the other hand, the transport spending essay also has just a one-sentence overview, yet it got 7–8 because the body has almost no errors. So when you prepare for bar charts, get the overview right, but spend even more time checking every number in the body.
2. The three most common bar chart reading errors
| Type of error | Example from these essays | How to prevent it |
|---|---|---|
| The vertical axis does not start at 0 | Coffee essay: 34.5% read as 45% | Before writing, check where the axis starts and the gap between gridlines |
| Too many bars, so you read the wrong one | Income essay: figures for two groups both off by 1 | Line up the top of each bar with a ruler or pen before reading it |
| Missing a bar | Coffee essay: Hobart and Brisbane left out | After writing, tick off each bar on the chart |
3. Have a reason for your grouping
| Grouping by | Suits charts where | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Size of values | There is a clear gap between a high group and a low group | Income essay: below / above $75,000 |
| Category (one paragraph per legend item) | There are about three legend items and the ranking of cities differs for each | Coffee essay: one paragraph per habit |
| Shape of the trend | There is a time axis and some subjects follow similar trends | Transport spending essay: one pair that fell, rose and fell; one pair that moved in a single direction |
All three approaches can score well. The key is that after grouping, each paragraph needs a sentence explaining why these items belong together. The first sentence of each paragraph in the transport spending essay does exactly that. The income essay only opens with a statement of range, such as As regards households in less than $74,999, without saying what those groups have in common.
4. A month of progress, mostly in accuracy
From TA 5 on 26 May to TA 7–8 on 29 June, the template in all three essays is much the same, and the sentence structures did not become especially fancy. The difference is that in the last essay almost every number is right, every category name is accurate, and every country and every year is covered. In other words, to score well on bar charts you do not need more advanced vocabulary; you need to read the chart more carefully.
6. Rewrite: the overview and body of the coffee habits essay
I chose the coffee essay for the rewrite because it shows best that “the overview must be right, and so must the body”. The text below is labelled “Rewrite” because I wrote it while putting this post together.
Rewrite: introduction + overview
The bar chart shows the results of a survey on the proportions of residents in five Australian cities who bought fresh or instant coffee, or went to a café for coffee or tea, in the previous four weeks.
Overall, going to a café was the most common habit in four of the five cities, the exception being Adelaide, where buying instant coffee was marginally more popular. Buying fresh coffee was the least common habit everywhere, although it was noticeably more widespread in Sydney and Melbourne than in the other three cities.
What I changed: the introduction now names all three habits and the “previous four weeks”, instead of just purchasing and drinking. The overview keeps the two correct judgements from the original, but explains the Adelaide exception (instant coffee slightly higher) and adds a new key point: fresh coffee was clearly more popular in Sydney and Melbourne. The tense is now consistently past.
Rewrite: Body 1 (the two buying habits)
Looking first at buying habits, the proportion of residents who bought fresh coffee ranged from about 35% to 44%. Sydney and Melbourne had the highest figures, at roughly 44% and 42% respectively, while Brisbane and Adelaide had the lowest, at around 35% each, with Hobart in between at nearly 39%. The pattern for instant coffee was almost the reverse: Hobart and Brisbane recorded the highest rates, at about 54% and 53%, whereas Sydney had the lowest, at approximately 45%, followed by Melbourne at under 49%.
What I changed: first, 34.5% is corrected to around 35% and Sydney’s instant coffee figure to about 45%, so nothing contradicts anything else. Second, all five cities now appear for both habits, including Hobart, which was missing before. Third, I deleted the unsupported “the gap is smaller” comparison and replaced it with a feature that really exists: the city rankings for the two kinds of coffee are almost reversed. Fourth, instead of of the total and contributes, I used the proportion of residents who …, which suits survey data.
The other body paragraph would cover going to a café: Melbourne, Hobart and Sydney were all above 60% (about 63.5%, 63% and 61%), Brisbane was about 55.5%, and Adelaide was under half (about 49.5%), the only city where going to a café was slightly less common than buying instant coffee (about 50%). That way, the “Adelaide exception” in the overview is backed up by numbers in the body.
7. Sentence patterns and a checklist for bar charts
Different ways to refer to categories (income groups as an example)
| Type | Sentence frame |
|---|---|
| A range | households earning between $50,000 and $74,999 |
| Highest / lowest group | the highest-income group / the lowest-income bracket |
| Less than / or more | households with an income of less than $25,000 / of $100,000 or more |
| Short forms (on second mention) | the top bracket / the two lowest groups / the middle category |
Useful bar chart patterns
| Purpose | Sentence frame | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Range | The figure ranged from about [x]% in A to [y]% in B. | Saves words compared with listing five numbers |
| Reversed ranking | The pattern for B was almost the reverse: … | A very common highlight on bar charts |
| Exception | …, the exception being A, where … | Useful in the overview |
| Same shape | A and B followed a similar pattern, dipping in … before peaking in …. | Topic sentence when grouping by trend |
| Comparing scale | The figures for A and B were roughly double those for C and D. | Works well as the second sentence of an overview |
| A fall, then a rise | A dipped to [x] in … before rising sharply to [y]. | Don’t write kept increasing |
✓ Self-check list
- ☐ Before writing, I checked the vertical axis: where does it start, and how much is each gridline worth?
- ☐ When paraphrasing the task, I confirmed what the chart measures (number of households? percentages? amounts of money?)
- ☐ Category names match the legend exactly: never drop less than, or more, between … and …
- ☐ Every subject and every category appears at least once in the body (tick off each bar when finished)
- ☐ Ranges and individual figures in the same paragraph do not contradict each other
- ☐ Every comparison (a bigger gap, a smaller gap) can be backed up by the chart
- ☐ For surveys and independent percentages, I did not use of the total or contribute
- ☐ Tenses are consistent: past years and past surveys take the past tense
Practice
- Rewrite the overview of the income essay as a two-sentence “ranking + change” version: one sentence on the largest and smallest groups, one on the changes in 2011 and 2015.
- Add a scale comparison to the overview of the transport spending essay, practising the roughly double pattern.
- Find a bar chart whose vertical axis does not start at 0 and do just one thing first: estimate the value of every bar and write it next to the bar. Then compare with the answer key or a classmate to see how large your reading errors are.
Bar charts look orderly and easy, but what they really test is patience. The changes in my scores across these three essays map almost directly onto the accuracy of my numbers. If your TA is stuck at 5 or 6, don’t rush to change your template. Take an old essay, check every number against the chart again, and the answer is often right there.
Further reading
- Review of my tutor Ali: streamlining my essay structure (400 → 300 words) (in Chinese)
- How to check your IELTS sub-scores (in Chinese)
- My successful IDP re-mark (in Chinese)
- Farid, a former examiner: live feedback on speaking and writing (in Chinese)
- IELTS study notes overview (in Chinese)
This is the last part of “Bar Chart Samples”. To start again, go back to Part 1.
IELTS Notes in English · Band Score Samples (post 2 of 19)
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Task 1 Structure · Task 2 Structure · Topic Guides · Writing Language · Band Score Samples · Practice Methods · Speaking & Study Tips
✦ Target Your Future
Some days you practise for hours and the score still does not move. I hope these notes remind you that the setbacks are part of the road: every recording you replayed, every essay you rewrote and every sentence you finally dared to say is progress you have already made.
I wrote this down so the next person can take fewer detours. You do not have to follow my method exactly. Find a rhythm that works for you, rest when you need to, and come back for the next small step.
I hope what you take away is more than a number on a score report: a little more confidence in yourself, and the courage to step a bit closer to the world.
— Ting
← Back to IELTS notes in English
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