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Task 1 Academic · Line graph · Work

Regional unemployment before and after a shock

Three regions take an almost identical hit and recover at three different speeds — a graph where the interesting movement is the widening gap, not the lines themselves.

The question

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words.

The graph below shows unemployment rates in three regions of one country between 2005 and 2025.

Unemployment rate by region, 2005–2025
YearNorthCentralSouth
20059.25.16.4
20088.44.65.9
201013.69.811.2
201511.56.28.7
202010.84.97.1
202510.24.26.0

A 150-word factual summary of a graph, chart, table, process or map. This prompt is original, written in the standard format for teaching purposes — it is not taken from any past paper.

What separates the three answers

The lines never cross and the ranking never changes, so the only real story is how far apart they end up — which is exactly what the weakest answer cannot see.

The three answers

Band 6.5

180 words (the task asks for at least 150)

The answer works. It addresses the task, the reader follows it, and the meaning survives — but ideas stay general, linking is mechanical, wording repeats, and small errors are visible throughout.

The answer

The line graph shows the information about the rate of the unemployment in three different regions of one country between 2005 and 2025.

In 2005, the North had the highest unemployment with 9.2 per cent, the South had 6.4 per cent and the Central had the lowest with 5.1 per cent. In 2008 all the three regions decreased a little, to 8.4 per cent, 5.9 per cent and 4.6 per cent.

After that, in 2010 all the regions increased sharply. The North increased to 13.6 per cent, the South to 11.2 per cent and the Central to 9.8 per cent. Then in 2015 they started to decrease again, and the North was 11.5 per cent, the South was 8.7 per cent and the Central was 6.2 per cent3. In 2020 and 2025 they continued to decrease1, and in 2025 the North was 10.2 per cent, the South was 6.0 and the Central was 4.2.

Overall, the unemployment increased in 2010 in all the regions and after that it decreased.2 The North had always the highest unemployment in all the period.4

What an examiner notices

  1. 1. Task achievement

    “In 2020 and 2025 they continued to decrease”

    Treating the three regions as one subject conceals the finding. Central fell 1.9 points over those ten years and the North fell 1.3 from a base twice as high — the same word for two very different movements.

  2. 2. Task achievement

    “Overall, the unemployment increased in 2010 in all the regions and after that it decreased.”

    True of every line, and therefore of no use in distinguishing them. An overview should say what the graph shows that the reader could not guess.

  3. 3. Coherence and cohesion

    “the North was 11.5 per cent, the South was 8.7 per cent and the Central was 6.2 per cent”

    Six dates, each handled as a list of three. The reader is never given a single region's story from beginning to end.

  4. 4. Grammatical range and accuracy

    “The North had always the highest unemployment in all the period.”

    The frequency adverb belongs between the auxiliary and the participle, and 'in all the period' should be 'throughout the period'. Both are typical of the band: noticeable, not obstructive.

One honest caveat

Band labels here describe what each piece of writing demonstrates against the four published assessment areas, paraphrased in plain language. They are teaching illustrations produced for this site, not official material, and no sample has been marked by a test provider. Real scripts are marked whole; two answers with the same label can still look quite different from each other, and nothing on this page can promise anyone a particular result.

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