Task 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The bar chart below shows the average time commuters spent travelling to and from work each day, by mode of transport, in a large city and a medium-sized city in 2022.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
| Car | Bus | Train | Bicycle | Walking | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Large city (pop. 4.2 million) | 74 | 88 | 62 | 38 | 29 |
| Medium city (pop. 600,000) | 41 | 57 | 69 | 31 | 24 |
Write at least 150 words.
Task 2
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Some people believe that all advertising directed at children should be banned entirely, because children are too young to understand that they are being persuaded to buy something.
To what extent do you agree or disagree?
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: commuting takes longer in the large city for every mode except the train, and in both cities motorised modes take far longer than cycling or walking.
- Identifies the exception — train commutes are longer in the medium city (69 min) than in the large city (62 min) — as a key feature rather than burying it or missing it.
- Supports comparisons with accurate figures (bus 88 vs 57 min; car 74 vs 41 min) and uses them to quantify the gap ("roughly 30 minutes longer", "almost double") rather than simply listing both numbers.
- Stays descriptive: no speculation about traffic congestion, rail quality or urban planning.
Coherence & Cohesion
- Organises by comparison rather than by city — typically one paragraph on the motorised modes (where the large city is much slower) and one on active modes and the train exception — instead of describing all five bars for one city and then all five for the other.
- Uses referencing ("the former", "its smaller counterpart", "this mode") so the two city names are not repeated in every sentence.
- Linkers are chosen to do real work: "whereas", "by contrast", "the only exception being".
Lexical Resource
- Uses comparative language with precision: "considerably longer", "marginally shorter", "just over twice as long", "the narrowest gap".
- Varies the vocabulary of time and travel: journey, commute, travelling time, spent, took, lasted; residents, commuters, those who cycle.
- Paraphrases the prompt accurately ("average time commuters spent travelling to and from work" → "mean daily commuting time") without changing its meaning.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- Controls comparative and superlative structures accurately, including the harder forms ("took almost twice as long as", "the second-longest commute", "31 minutes shorter than").
- Uses past simple consistently for the single year 2022 and handles figures correctly (74 minutes, not '74 minute').
- Sentences combine comparisons without becoming tangled; commas, dashes and parentheses are used accurately around inserted figures.
Task Response
- Takes a clear position on the word entirely — a total ban versus regulation — and states it in the introduction, not just the conclusion.
- Engages directly with the reason given in the prompt (children cannot recognise persuasion) rather than writing a general essay about advertising being bad.
- Supports the argument with specific examples: junk-food advertising during cartoons, in-app purchases in games, toy promotions before festivals, or existing restrictions such as those in place in some European countries.
- Considers at least one counter-argument (parental responsibility, funding of children's media, the impracticality of defining "aimed at children") and answers it, which is what separates Band 7 from Band 8.
Coherence & Cohesion
- A four- or five-paragraph structure with one controlling idea per body paragraph and a topic sentence that signals it.
- The argument progresses — for example, from the strongest reason for restriction, through the limits of a total ban, to a qualified position — rather than listing unrelated points.
- Cohesion comes from referencing and logical links ("this vulnerability", "such a blanket measure") rather than a mechanical "Firstly… Secondly… Finally".
Lexical Resource
- Uses precise vocabulary for the topic: persuasive intent, commercial messaging, susceptible, regulation, watershed, pester power, consumer protection, loophole, enforcement.
- Distinguishes shades of meaning: ban versus restrict versus regulate; manipulate versus inform.
- Collocations are natural ("exploit a child's trust", "a blunt instrument", "close a loophole") and less common words are used accurately, not decoratively.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- Accurate use of conditionals and hypotheticals to reason about a policy that does not yet exist ("If such a ban were enforced, broadcasters would…").
- A range of complex sentences — concession ("Although parents bear some responsibility…"), relative and noun clauses — produced with consistent accuracy.
- Modal verbs convey the right degree of certainty ("is likely to", "could", "would almost certainly"); punctuation is controlled and there are no comma splices.
Common traps for this specific test
The mistakes most likely to cost marks on these two questions.
For four of the five modes the large city is slower; the train is the only mode that takes longer in the medium city (69 min against 62). A report that says "commutes were longer in the large city for all modes" is factually wrong and loses Task Achievement marks.
Writing five sentences about the large city and then five about the medium city produces a list with no comparison. The task demands that each mode be set against its counterpart.
The figures are minutes per day, covering travel to and from work. Writing "a bus journey took 88 minutes" misreports the data — that is the round-trip total.
"Because traffic is worse in big cities" may be true, but it is not in the chart. Explanations belong in Task 2, not Task 1, and waste words that should go to comparison.
The gap for bus and car (31 and 33 minutes) is far wider than for walking and cycling (5 and 7 minutes). A Band 7+ answer quantifies how much the gap varies, not just which bar is taller.
The statement proposes a total ban. An essay that argues advertising to children "should be regulated" without ever saying whether a complete ban is justified has not answered the question asked.
The prompt claims children cannot recognise persuasion. Strong essays test this — very young children cannot, older children often can — and use that distinction to shape a nuanced position.
Opening with "I strongly agree", then spending two paragraphs on why a ban would be impossible, leaves the examiner unsure what you think. Whatever your view, it must be consistent from introduction to conclusion.