Task 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The table below shows the average amount of water used per person per day, in litres, in six countries in 2000, 2010 and 2020.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
| Country | 2000 | 2010 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 382 | 341 | 310 |
| Australia | 340 | 262 | 231 |
| Japan | 320 | 301 | 287 |
| Spain | 271 | 248 | 233 |
| Brazil | 184 | 176 | 168 |
| India | 133 | 151 | 174 |
Write at least 150 words.
Task 2
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
In many cities around the world, the cost of buying or renting a home has risen much faster than people's wages over the past two decades.
What problems does this cause? What solutions can you suggest?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
What a Band 8–9 response must demonstrate
Measured against the four official assessment criteria — specific to this test's two tasks.
Task Achievement
- Gives a clear overview with the two headline features: consumption fell in five of the six countries across the period, while India was the only country where use rose, and the gap between the highest and lowest user narrowed sharply.
- Groups the countries sensibly (heavy users that fell — the United States, Australia and Japan; moderate users — Spain and Brazil; the single riser — India) rather than writing one sentence per row in table order.
- Supports each feature with accurate, selected figures and uses them to compare (e.g. the US used almost three times as much as India in 2000 but less than twice as much by 2020; Australia's 109-litre fall was the largest).
- Stays descriptive: no speculation about droughts, pricing or water-saving campaigns.
Coherence & Cohesion
- Organises by trend or by magnitude, not by column — typically an introduction, an overview, a paragraph on the falling countries and a paragraph on India and the converging pattern.
- Uses referencing ("the former", "this country", "the remaining three") so the six country names are not repeated in every sentence.
- Cohesive devices mark comparison and contrast ("whereas", "by contrast", "over the same period") without a linker mechanically starting every sentence.
Lexical Resource
- Uses accurate language of change and degree: fell steadily, dropped markedly, declined only slightly, rose consistently, roughly halved the gap.
- Varies the noun phrases for the measure: consumption, usage, the amount used, per-capita use, daily use — avoiding "water" as the subject of every sentence.
- Handles units precisely ("litres per person per day") and uses "by", "to" and "from" correctly with figures.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- Controls comparative and superlative structures ("the steepest decline", "almost three times as much as", "the only country to record a rise") and "despite/although" concession clauses.
- Uses past simple consistently for the dated data, with participle phrases ("having fallen by 78 litres between 2000 and 2010, Australian use…") handled accurately.
- Number and unit expressions are punctuated correctly (382 litres, a 109-litre fall) and the majority of sentences are error-free.
Task Response
- Answers both questions with comparable depth: at least two concrete problems (e.g. workers priced out and commuting long distances; young adults delaying leaving home; key workers such as nurses and teachers leaving the city) and at least two workable solutions.
- Links each solution to a problem already identified, so the essay reads as an argument rather than two unrelated lists.
- Engages with the housing versus wages framing — the problem is affordability relative to income, not simply "expensive houses" — and considers both renters and buyers.
- Ideas are developed with specific mechanisms (land-value or vacancy taxes, building on brownfield sites, rent regulation, social housing) rather than the vague "governments should build more houses".
Coherence & Cohesion
- A clear structure — introduction, a problems paragraph, a solutions paragraph (or one paragraph per problem–solution pair), conclusion — with topic sentences that tell the reader which question is being answered.
- Logical sequencing inside paragraphs: problem stated, consequence explained, example given, before moving on.
- Cohesion through referencing and paraphrase ("this shortfall", "such measures", "the resulting exodus") rather than "Firstly… Secondly… Thirdly".
Lexical Resource
- Uses precise topic vocabulary: affordability, rental yield, speculative investment, supply shortfall, gentrification, social housing, zoning, key workers, overcrowding.
- Paraphrases the prompt naturally in the introduction ("risen much faster than wages" → "outstripped growth in earnings").
- Collocations are natural and less common ("priced out of the market", "stretch household budgets", "ease pressure on supply") without forced rare words.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- A range of complex structures: conditionals for solutions ("If councils were to release public land…"), cause–effect clauses ("so that", "as a result of which"), and relative clauses.
- Modal verbs are used to calibrate certainty ("could", "would be likely to", "may") and passive forms appear where the agent is unimportant ("rents are being driven up by…").
- Punctuation supports long sentences — no comma splices, no run-ons — and errors are rare and never obscure meaning.
Common traps for this specific test
The mistakes most likely to cost marks on these two questions.
India is the only country whose consumption increased (133 → 174 litres). An overview that says "water use fell in all six countries" is factually wrong and caps Task Achievement; the exception is the single most important feature to report.
Eighteen cells invite a mechanical six-sentence list ("The US used 382, then 341, then 310"). A strong answer groups countries by size of decline and uses only the figures needed to support each comparison.
Because the heaviest users fell while India rose, the range between top and bottom shrank from 249 litres to 136 litres. Noticing this convergence is what separates a Band 7 description from a Band 8+.
Sentences such as "Australia reduced its use because of drought" are speculation, not description. Task 1 reports what the table shows; reasons belong to Task 2.
The figures are per person per day, not national totals. Writing "India used the least water" is inaccurate — India's population makes its total consumption enormous; only the per-capita figure is lower.
Problems–solutions essays are marked on both questions. Three paragraphs of problems followed by one sentence of solutions is an incomplete response, however well written.
If your problem is that key workers are leaving the city, a solution about mortgage tax relief does not address it. Pair each solution with a problem you actually described.
The prompt is about prices rising faster than wages. Essays that discuss only expensive property, or only low pay, miss the relationship at the heart of the question.