Writing Test 1

IELTS Academic Writing Task 

Writing Task 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The pie graphs below show the result of a survey of children's activities. The first graph shows the cultural and leisure activities that boys participate in, whereas the second graph shows the activities in which the girls participate.

Write a report describing the information shown in the two pie graphs.

Write at least 150 words.

Model answer

The two pie charts draw the conclusion of a survey of boys' and girls' cultural and leisure activities.

Overall, equal quantities of both sexes enjoyed listening to music, but a dramatically larger number of girls liked reading. There were also many differences in terms of the children's preferred sports.

According to the first graph, a significant amount of boys spend their time by playing computer games, while, as it can be easily seen from the second graph, girls’ favorite cultural and leisure activity is dancing. These two activities are followed by basketball for boys with the proportion of just over a quarter and reading for girls with the percentage of just over a fifth.

It is clear from the two charts that, girls show no interest in playing soccer and skateboarding, whereas boys don’t fancy doing gymnastics and playing netball. Both reading and listening to music appear in two charts. However, when these two charts are compared, it can be noticed that there is a significant difference about the portion of reading between boys and girls. On the other hand, listening to music has the same region of 10% in both graphs. .

(162 words)

Writing Task 2

You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.

Some people believe that violence on television and in computer games has a damaging effect on the society. Others deny that these factors have any significant influence on people's behavior. What is your opinion?

Write at least 250 words

Model answer

These days, the amount of violence in media is growing. While some people argue that this trend will undoubtedly lead humans to dangerous future, others claim that it has no damaging effect on the society. I believe that in most cases media violence doesn't affect people's behavior.

Firstly, I think that people act from their motives, regardless what they see on the television. That is to say, if someone intends to do harm to somebody, that is not because of watching TV or playing computer games, but due to that person's character and education. Although it is generally considered that violent media accustoms viewers to cruelty, I doubt this opinion. In my view, reasonable and intelligent people treat others humanely irrespective of what they see or hear in fictional stories.

Moreover, video games and television may even reduce social violence by providing a safe outlet for aggressiveness. In other words, truculent people may fight in virtual reality instead of evincing their combative spirit in real world. This may not only help those people, but also reduce the level of social violence in long-term perspective.

Finally, despite many claims and assumptions about negative effects of television and computer games I have never seen any proven connection between violent media and illegal activities in social life.

Taking everything into consideration, I would say that violence in contemporary media has no substantial influence on people's behavior. Television and computers are not the main factors that shape personal character, and they can even be useful in reducing the level of violence.

(255 words)