1. Read the task and the chart
This Academic Writing Task 1 exercise focuses on a grouped bar chart. Give yourself about 20 minutes and write at least 150 words in connected prose. These format points come from the official IELTS Academic Writing guidance.
Academic Task 1 describes visual information. General Training Task 1 is a different task, so use this exercise for Academic preparation.
Original practice task
How borrowing changed at a library
The chart gives the percentage of loans made in four formats at a fictional public library in 2015 and 2025. Describe the most important patterns and support your description with relevant comparisons. Write at least 150 words.
| Format | 2015 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|
| Printed books | 62% | 42% |
| E-books | 18% | 28% |
| Audiobooks | 12% | 22% |
| Magazines | 8% | 8% |
This counts up. Aim to finish your complete Task 1 session at about 20:00; it does not stop or submit your writing.
2. Find the story before the details
Use the first few minutes to decide what belongs in an overview. An overview should make the broad pattern clear without listing every value.
- Check the measure. Each value is a percentage of all loans in one year. It is not a count of books, a percentage of residents, or a satisfaction rating.
- Identify the largest and smallest groups. Which categories keep their positions across the two years?
- Compare directions of change. Find one decrease, two increases and one unchanged figure.
- Group related information. Compare printed books with e-books, then discuss audiobooks and magazines. You can also combine the two digital formats if you make the calculation clear.
Check a possible overview
Printed books remained the most borrowed individual format, despite a substantial decline in their share. Digital borrowing increased, while magazines stayed at the same level.
This selects the main pattern without inventing a reason. The chart cannot tell us whether prices, new devices or a library policy caused the change.
Precision check: percentage or percentage points?
Complete these sentences before opening the explanation:
- The share for printed books fell from 62% to 42%, a fall of ___ percentage points.
- E-books and audiobooks together accounted for ___% of loans in 2025.
- The gap between printed books and e-books in 2025 was ___ percentage points.
Check the calculations
1: 20. Subtract 42 from 62. This is a 20-percentage-point fall, not a 20% relative decrease.
2: 50%. Add 28 and 22. The categories are separate, so their shares can be combined.
3: 14. Subtract 28 from 42. A percentage-point gap compares two percentages directly.
Write your own answer
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3. Compare with an annotated model
Try your own report first. This original example illustrates one way to select and organise the data. It is not an examiner-marked answer and has no claimed band score.
Read the model report and paragraph notes
The bar chart compares the proportions of loans accounted for by four formats at Fenwick Library in 2015 and 2025. The categories are printed books, e-books, audiobooks and magazines, and all figures are expressed as percentages of total borrowing.
Overall, printed books remained the largest category in both years, although their share fell considerably. By contrast, both digital formats became more prominent, while the proportion of magazine loans was unchanged. Together, e-books and audiobooks overtook printed books by the end of the period.
In 2015, printed books represented 62% of all loans, compared with just 18% for e-books and 12% for audiobooks. Ten years later, the printed-book figure had dropped by 20 percentage points to 42%. E-books rose to 28%, so the gap between these two categories narrowed from 44 to 14 percentage points.
Audiobooks also increased by 10 percentage points, reaching 22% in 2025. Consequently, the combined share of the two digital formats grew from 30% to exactly half of all loans. Magazines, in contrast, accounted for 8% in each year and remained the least borrowed format. The chart does not show whether the total number of loans increased or decreased.
What each paragraph does
- Introduction: identifies the subject, categories, dates and unit. It does not copy the task sentence word for word.
- Overview: highlights the dominant format, contrasting trends and an important combined comparison.
- First detail paragraph: supports the decline in print with figures and shows how its lead over e-books narrowed.
- Second detail paragraph: gives the remaining comparison and distinguishes shares from totals. The final sentence is a useful reminder for this exercise; it is not a compulsory ending for every Task 1 answer.
Repair one inaccurate sentence
“The number of printed books borrowed fell by 20% because people preferred using phones.”
Find three problems: the measure, the size of the change and the explanation.
See a more accurate version
“The share of loans for printed books fell by 20 percentage points, from 62% in 2015 to 42% in 2025.”
The chart shows proportions rather than absolute numbers. It supports a percentage-point calculation, and it gives no evidence about phone use or borrowers’ preferences.
4. Review for accuracy and selection
For a second attempt, close the model and write just a new overview from memory. Then check it against the chart, not against the model’s exact wording. The aim is accurate selection, not memorisation.
Format verified on 15 October 2026 using IELTS Academic Writing format. Chart, data, prompt, model report and teaching activities are original educational material. Checklist selections and your draft are not saved by this site.