IELTS Academic Writing Task 1: Community Centre Activities Line Graph (Band 9 Sample)
This Academic Task 1 asks you to summarise a line graph showing the number of people taking part in five activities at a community centre between 2000 and 2020. A band-9 response gives a clear overview of who rises and falls, and reports the key figures accurately. Below is a model answer of roughly 190 words, followed by why it scores 9 on all four criteria.
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01 · The task
The graph below shows the number of people taking part in five different activities at a community centre — film club, martial arts, amateur dramatics, table tennis and musical performances — between 2000 and 2020. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
02 · Band 9 sample answer
190 words · Band 9The line graph illustrates how many people took part in five activities at a community centre — film club, martial arts, amateur dramatics, table tennis and musical performances — over a twenty-year period from 2000 to 2020.
Overall, the film club remained comfortably the most popular activity throughout, while table tennis saw by far the most striking growth. In contrast, amateur dramatics declined steadily, and musical performances were introduced partway through the period.
The film club began with 64 participants and, after a slight dip to 60 in 2010, recovered to finish marginally higher at 66 — a stable and dominant activity. Martial arts was similarly steady, fluctuating narrowly around 35 people across the two decades. Table tennis told a very different story: starting at just 16 participants, it rose gently until 2010 and then surged, more than doubling to reach 54 by 2020.
Amateur dramatics moved in the opposite direction, falling from 26 participants to only 6 by the end. Musical performances, meanwhile, did not exist until 2010, but grew from nothing to 18 participants by 2020, overtaking amateur dramatics in the process.
03 · Why this scores Band 9
The response covers all five activities, opens with an overview that groups them by behaviour (dominant, surging, declining, newly introduced), and reports accurate figures (film club 64→66, table tennis 16→54, amateur dramatics 26→6). It selects the significant movements rather than describing every five-year interval.
The report follows the ideal Task 1 shape, and the two detail paragraphs are organised by trend — the stable and rising activities together, then the falling and the new one. Cohesion is natural — "after a slight dip", "told a very different story", "in the opposite direction", "meanwhile" — and comparisons run throughout.
Trend vocabulary is precise and varied — "a slight dip", "fluctuating narrowly", "surged", "more than doubling", "grew from nothing" — and each verb is matched to the correct degree of change, so no single word like "increased" is overused.
A range of structures is controlled accurately: a participle result clause ("more than doubling to reach 54"), a contrast with "while" and "in contrast", and a relative-style aside ("overtaking amateur dramatics in the process"). Past tenses are used consistently, and the writing is error-free.
04 · Useful collocations for this task
Tap a phrase to see what it means and how to use it. Natural collocations like these lift your Lexical Resource score.
05 · Frequently asked questions
How do I handle a graph with five lines?
Group them by behaviour rather than describing each in turn. This model clusters the stable/rising activities in one paragraph and the falling/new one in another, which keeps the report organised and makes the comparisons clearer than five separate descriptions would.
Do I mention an activity that starts at zero?
Yes — a line that appears partway through (like musical performances from 2010) is a key feature. Note when it began and how it grew ("grew from nothing to 18"), as its introduction is exactly the kind of detail the overview should flag.
What tense should I use?
Past tenses, because the data covers 2000–2020 and is complete. Use past simple for the movements ("rose", "surged", "fell"). If any part of a graph were a future projection, that portion would take future forms instead.
How long should a Task 1 answer be?
At least 150 words; a band-9 answer is usually 170–200. This model is 190 words, enough to report all five activities with an overview and accurate figures. Spend about 20 minutes on Task 1.
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