Task 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The diagram below shows how honey is produced on a commercial apiary, from the flowers visited by the bees to the jars sold in shops.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
Task 2
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
In some countries, a growing number of older people are living alone rather than with their adult children or other relatives.
Why is this happening? What effects does this trend have on individuals and on society as a whole?
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 that captures the shape of the process: a natural phase carried out by the bees (stages 1–3) followed by a mechanical phase carried out by the beekeeper (stages 4–8), ending with the frames being returned to the hive.
- Reports all eight stages in the correct order without omitting the two that candidates most often skip — ripening/capping and the settling tank.
- Includes the specific details the diagram supplies (18% water content, 3 km foraging range, 24–48 hours settling) where they clarify a stage, rather than listing every figure mechanically.
- Stays descriptive: no comment on the taste of honey, the price of jars or the welfare of bees.
Coherence & Cohesion
- Organises in a logical sequence — introduction, overview, then two body paragraphs that mirror the natural/mechanical division rather than one sentence per stage.
- Uses sequencing language with variety ("once", "at this point", "having been uncapped", "the final stage") instead of a chain of "then… then… then".
- Referencing is accurate: "the frames", "these combs", "the resulting liquid" track clearly back to the right object.
Lexical Resource
- Uses the technical nouns the diagram gives (nectar, frames, supers, uncapping, centrifugal extractor, settling tank) accurately and without over-explaining them.
- Controls process verbs in their correct forms: collect, deposit, seal, slice off, spin, drain, filter, bottle.
- Paraphrases the prompt in the introduction ("how honey is produced on a commercial apiary" → "the stages by which honey is made and packaged on a commercial bee farm").
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- Handles the passive voice confidently for the human-operated stages ("the caps are sliced off", "the honey is then spun out") while keeping active voice for what the bees do.
- Uses a range of subordinate structures — participle clauses ("Having been filtered, the honey…"), relative clauses, and purpose clauses ("so that air bubbles can rise").
- Maintains consistent present simple tense throughout; errors are rare and do not impede meaning.
Task Response
- Answers both questions fully and in roughly equal measure — at least one well-developed paragraph of causes and one of effects — rather than spending most of the essay on why and one sentence on consequences.
- Distinguishes effects on individuals (loneliness, independence, safety, cost) from effects on society (healthcare demand, housing stock, community care), because the question explicitly asks for both.
- Offers specific, plausible causes (longer life expectancy, adult children migrating for work, rising female employment, smaller homes, changing attitudes to independence) rather than vague references to "modern life".
- Acknowledges that effects are not uniformly negative — some older people actively choose to live alone — which shows the nuanced engagement a Band 8+ answer needs.
Coherence & Cohesion
- A clear structure in which the reader can see at once where causes end and effects begin; each body paragraph has a topic sentence signalling which question it answers.
- Ideas are developed in depth rather than listed: a cause is explained through a mechanism (e.g. how internal migration separates generations), not simply named.
- Cohesion relies on referencing and logical sequencing ("this shift", "as a result of such mobility") rather than a linker at the start of every sentence.
Lexical Resource
- Uses precise topic vocabulary: ageing population, life expectancy, multigenerational household, social isolation, informal care, nuclear family, urban migration, residential care.
- Varies the way the key idea is expressed — "live independently", "reside on their own", "solitary living", "single-person households" — to avoid repeating "live alone" in every sentence.
- Collocations are natural ("a strain on public services", "erode family ties", "a sense of autonomy") and are not forced in for display.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- Controls cause-and-effect grammar: "owing to", "as a consequence of", "which in turn leads to", and result clauses with "so… that".
- Uses a range of complex sentences — concessive ("while some elderly people relish their independence"), conditional and relative clauses — with accurate punctuation.
- Tenses are consistent: present simple for the general trend, present perfect for changes that have developed over recent decades.
Common traps for this specific test
The mistakes most likely to cost marks on these two questions.
Stages 1–3 (foraging, hive storage, ripening and capping) happen inside the hive before the beekeeper does anything. Answers that begin with the beekeeper removing frames miss almost half the process and cannot score above Band 6 for Task Achievement.
Extraction (spinning the honey out of the comb) and filtering (removing wax and debris through mesh) are separate stages with different purposes. Writing "the honey is then extracted and cleaned" in one breath loses the detail that distinguishes a Band 7 report.
The final stage notes that emptied frames go back to the hive. This is not a cyclical process, but mentioning the reuse of the combs is a key feature that shows you have read the whole diagram.
The bees collect nectar and seal cells (active); the frames are uncapped and the honey is spun (passive). Putting every stage in the passive makes it sound as though the bees are also machines, while putting everything in the active invents a human agent where the diagram shows none.
Comments such as "this is why raw honey is healthier" or "smoke is cruel to the bees" are irrelevant to a process description and waste words that should be spent on the stages themselves.
This is a two-part question. Candidates who write three paragraphs on causes and squeeze effects into a closing sentence have not addressed the task; Task Response is capped at Band 5–6 regardless of language quality.
The question explicitly separates the two. An essay that only discusses loneliness (an individual effect) and never touches healthcare costs, housing or community care (societal effects) has answered only half of the second question.
Many older people choose independent living and report higher life satisfaction. An essay that presents living alone solely as a tragedy reads as one-sided; recognising both the benefits and the risks is what the examiner means by a "well-developed response".