Task 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The bar chart below shows the number of visitors to a national museum each year from 2016 to 2021, and the pie chart shows where the museum's visitors came from in 2021.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Annual visitors to the national museum, 2016–2021
| 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visitors (millions) | 5.4 | 5.8 | 6.1 | 6.5 | 1.3 | 2.9 |
Origin of visitors in 2021
| Visitor origin, 2021 | |
|---|---|
| Domestic | 62 |
| Europe | 18 |
| Asia | 9 |
| Americas | 7 |
| Other | 4 |
Write at least 150 words.
Task 2
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Some people believe that school students should be assessed mainly through coursework completed throughout the year, because this reflects sustained effort and understanding. Others argue that final examinations are fairer and more reliable, since all students are tested under the same conditions.
Discuss both these views and give your own opinion.
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 an overview covering both charts: visitor numbers rose steadily to a 2019 peak, collapsed in 2020 and only partially recovered in 2021, while in that year the large majority of visitors were domestic.
- Treats the 2020 fall as the central feature of the bar chart — an 80% drop — and quantifies the incomplete recovery (2021 was still below half the 2019 figure).
- Connects the two charts where legitimate (the 2021 pie describes the 2.9 million visitors of that year; overseas visitors together made up under two-fifths) without inventing a comparison the data cannot support.
- Stays descriptive: no explanation of why numbers fell in 2020 and no assumptions about earlier years' origin mix.
Coherence & Cohesion
- Logical structure — introduction, overview, a paragraph on the bar chart trend, a paragraph on the 2021 origin breakdown — so each chart gets coherent treatment rather than the two being interleaved sentence by sentence.
- Uses referencing ("this figure", "the remainder", "the latter group") to avoid repeating "visitors" and "the museum" in every clause.
- Transitions between the charts are explicit ("Turning to where these visitors came from…") and cohesive devices are used selectively.
Lexical Resource
- Uses precise language of growth, collapse and recovery: climbed steadily, peaked at, plunged, slumped to a fraction of, rebounded only partially.
- Varies vocabulary of proportion for the pie chart: share, proportion, accounted for, made up, just under a fifth, a negligible 4%.
- Distinguishes number (millions of visitors) from percentage (origin share) consistently and never mixes the two units.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- Controls a range of structures: "having risen every year until 2019, attendance…", comparative clauses ("less than half the 2019 total"), and "while/whereas" contrasts between domestic and overseas shares.
- Past tenses handled accurately for the dated data, including the contrast between a continuing trend ("rose each year") and a single event ("fell in 2020").
- Decimal figures and percentages are expressed correctly (6.5 million; 62%); the majority of sentences are error-free.
Task Response
- Develops both views with genuine substance: why coursework is said to reflect sustained effort (and its vulnerability to outside help), and why exams are said to be fair (and their vulnerability to stress, illness or one bad day).
- States a clear position in the introduction and sustains it — for example, a weighted blend, or a principled preference for one method in particular subjects — rather than "both have pros and cons".
- Uses specific, relevant illustrations (a science practical portfolio versus a three-hour paper; the effect of tutoring on coursework; how examiners standardise marks) instead of generalities about "tests".
- Engages with reliability and fairness as distinct ideas, since the prompt raises both.
Coherence & Cohesion
- A four- or five-paragraph structure where each body paragraph has one controlling idea signposted by its topic sentence.
- Arguments progress towards the writer's judgement — the strongest point on each side leads logically into the conclusion — rather than being listed in arbitrary order.
- Cohesion achieved through referencing and logical sequencing ("this objection", "such a system", "the alternative") rather than a linker beginning every sentence.
Lexical Resource
- Uses precise assessment vocabulary: continuous assessment, summative, high-stakes, moderation, plagiarism, test anxiety, validity, reliability, grade inflation.
- Paraphrases the prompt instead of copying it ("assessed mainly through coursework" → "graded largely on work produced during the year").
- Collocations are natural and less common ("a snapshot of performance", "level the playing field", "lend itself to") without forcing rare words.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- A mix of complex structures under control: concession ("Although exams are impartial in principle…"), conditionals ("If a student were unwell on the day…"), and cleft sentences for emphasis.
- Accurate modality for argument ("may", "is likely to", "cannot guarantee") and correct use of the passive where the agent is irrelevant ("scripts are marked anonymously").
- Punctuation supports complex sentences — commas around subordinate clauses, no comma splices — and errors are rare and never impede meaning.
Common traps for this specific test
The mistakes most likely to cost marks on these two questions.
The pie chart is a single snapshot of 2021. Writing "domestic visitors increased to 62%" invents a change that the data does not show; there is no origin data for earlier years.
Calculating "3.4 million domestic visitors in 2016" by using the 2021 shares is an unsupported assumption. The only year where numbers and shares can be combined is 2021 (about 1.8 million domestic visitors).
A fall from 6.5 million to 1.3 million is a drop of four-fifths — the dominant feature. Calling it "a decrease" or giving it the same weight as the 0.3–0.4 million annual rises before it misjudges significance.
Visitors more than doubled in 2021, yet 2.9 million is still less than half the 2019 peak. A strong answer reports both facts; saying numbers "returned to normal" is inaccurate.
However obvious the cause of the 2020 drop may seem, Task 1 does not ask for it. Explaining the decline wastes words and is irrelevant to the assessment criteria.
The question contrasts coursework with final exams for school students. Essays that drift into university admissions tests or job interviews stop addressing the prompt.
The second view claims exams are both fairer (same conditions for all) and more reliable (consistent results). A Band 8 answer treats these as separate claims and can concede one while rejecting the other.
"Both methods have advantages" is not an opinion. The task asks for your view; state it in the introduction, support it in the body and restate it in the conclusion.