IELTS Academic Writing Task 1/ Graph Writing – Pie Charts:
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The charts below show the proportions of British Students at one university in England who were able to speak other languages in addition to English, in 2000 and 2010.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
Model Answer:
The two pie charts compare the percentage of British students who were multilingual, in the sense that they could use at least a second language other than English, at a university in England in 2000 and 2010.
Overall, the students at that UK university became more linguistically diverse over the decade. Spanish remained the most widely spoken second language by them, while the proportion of students who spoke no additional language fell noticeably.
In 2000, one out of five students in this UK university could not speak any foreign language. However, a decade later, this figure dropped, and one out of ten could not use a second language. Moreover, Spanish was the most common language they could speak, in both years, rising slightly from roughly 30% to just over one-third of all students. Meanwhile, those who spoke French declined from around 15% to about 10%.
In both years, 10% students knew German. In contrast, the proportion of students who could speak another unspecified language climbed from roughly 15% to almost 20%. The most striking increase occurred among students who could speak two or more foreign languages, as this group doubled from about 10% in 2000 to nearly 20% in 2010.