The graph below gives information about the number of jobs in four sectors of the economy in the US between 1960 and 2020.

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Read the sample answer on the topic: The graph below gives information about the number of jobs in four sectors of the economy in the US between 1960 and 2020.

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The graph below gives information about the number of jobs in four sectors of the economy in the US between 1960 and 2020.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

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Band Score: 5.5 Bands

The graph illustrates the data of employment in four different sections of US economy. year

Overall, the graph shows increase and decrease in the number of jobs such as there is a massive increase in health care and retail jobs and sudden decrease in agriculture and manufacturing jobs.

There were around 15 million jobs for different professions. Regarding healthcare, there was a massive increase in jobs from a million to 15 million between 1960 to 2020. Then, there was also a dramatic increase in retail jobs from 5 million to 15 million in years from 1960 to 2020. Therefore, both sectors shows increase in millions of jobs during 60 years. However, a sudden decrease from 5 million to 3 million in the number of jobs for agriculture has been seen between 1960 to 2020. While the jobs for manufacturing also show an unexpected decrease from 15 million to 12 million between 1969 to 2020.

Written by an IELTS Candidate

Band Score Analysis:

• The introduction needs improvement.
• The overview gives correct information, but the student should use the word ‘fluctuations’ instead of ‘increase and decrease’.
• The student has generalised the information [There were around 15 million jobs for different professions] in the body paragraph; information that is not given in the chart.
• Punctuation mistakes are present
• The student has used the present tense while the data in the chart is in the past.
• The use of ‘while’ is incorrect.
• The student has skipped some important data for certain categories in the body paragraph. For example, the student just mentioned the starting and ending figures of the manufacturing category, but an important trend [huge increase in 1980 and its figure] is missing.

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Band Score: 6.5 Bands

The line chart provides data about the number of jobs in four economic sectors (Agriculture, Retail, Manufacturing and Healthcare) in the US from 1960 to 2020.

Overall, it can be observed that the number of jobs in retail and healthcare sectors increased, and it declined in other two sectors.

Firstly, there were around 7 million jobs available in retail sector in 1960, while there were only 2 million available in healthcare. After this year, the number of jobs grew rapidly and became 5 million and 10 million in healthcare and retail sectors respectively. By the end of this period, the number of jobs available in both sectors were almost 17 million.

However, manufacturing and agriculture sectors observed the opposite trend. There were 15 million jobs in manufacturing in 1960, which was higher than all other sectors. It grew significantly up to 20 million in 1980, after which it fell steadily till 2020, when there were only around 12 million jobs in this sector. In terms of jobs in Agriclture, it had only just over 5 million jobs in this sector in 1960, and continued to drop steadily from this year onwards till 2020, when there were almost 2 million jobs only.

Written by an IELTS Candidate

Band Score Analysis:

• The student can increase their grammar by including more complex sentence structures.
• One major feature is missing from the overview [number of jobs in healthcare became the highest one by 2020 when it was the lowest at the start in 1960]
• Inaccuracy or over-generalised information [jobs in agriculture fell steadily. In fact, it dropped significantly in 1980 and then dropped steadily]
• Punctuation mistakes are present
• Spelling mistake [agriclture], but it does not affect the meaning of the sentence.
• In order to improve the score, the student must include different grammatical structures, improve the overview, and make comparisons using contrasting linking words.

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