Model IELTS Academic Writing Task 1: Cashless Society

Oct 27, 2022 | IELTS Test

This mock IELTS Academic Task 1 question is a double graph question with a bar chart and a line graph.

When our writer submitted this to us there were two problems, and they were the kind of mistakes many test candidates also make. The first one was that the overview only covered the bar chart–note how we have extended that to include the line graph. The other is that not enough data was included in the description of the line graph. Remember the reader must have enough information to roughly recreate the data.

We structured this essay in the following way…

1st Body Paragraph: the introduction

2nd Body Paragraph: contains the overview for both charts and the description of data in the bar chart

3rd Body Paragraph: describes the data in the line graph

The Practice IELTS Question

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The chart and line graph below give information on the number of people who regularly use cash each month and the number of payments by different methods each year in the UK.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

You should write at least 150 words

watermarked graph with cashless society data

A Good Example Answer For a Double Chart IELTS Writing Task 1

The bar chart displays the number of people who make transactions using cash each month. The line graph shows the proportion of transactions made using four different payment methods. 

Overall, the bar chart shows a clearly defined trend towards a cashless society, while the line chart shows card and contactless payments steadily replacing cash. In 2016, the number of people who mainly use cash was roughly equal to those who rarely use cash: slightly over 2 million each. Over the following four years, the number of people rarely using cash quickly increased, reaching 6 million in 2018 before a high of almost 14 million in 2020. The number of people who mainly use cash, meanwhile, has gradually fallen year on year; by 2018 it had dipped under 2 million, and continued to fall into 2020, when it reached 1 million.

From 2010 the proportion of transactions made by cash, meanwhile, decreased gradually from around 22 million until 2016, then began to fall more sharply in the period to 2019 – reaching a low of around 8 million annually. Card payments rose at a fairly consistent rate over the nine years, from 6 million to 15 million a year, while contactless payments grew slowly from 2 million until 2013, then swiftly began to rise. Usage of cheques remained stable throughout the period shown.

What You Can Do Next To Improve Your IELTS Writing Score?

Write your own answer to this question and receive professional graded feedback by purchasing one of our Writing Correction Packages.

If you would like to learn more, you can purchase a video course about IELTS General Task 1 essays, by visiting this page.

Or purchase our Academic Task 1 eBook, which gives you many more model essays with detailed explanations and exercises. 

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