IELTS Writing · Task 1 · Employment by Sector

Before you start

20 minutes from the moment you press Start. The clock doesn’t stop at 20:00 – it goes on in amber, so you see how long you really needed.
At least 150 words, four paragraphs: introduction, overview, body 1, body 2 (the overview may also come last).
No help: no sentence frames, no model answer, no spellcheck, no click-to-translate.
The graph is new, but the topic is the same as in Practice.

On computer or on paper?

IELTS is offered in both formats, and you choose one when you book the test. On computer, the screen shows a word count, there is no spellcheck, and one clock runs for the whole Writing test – 60 minutes for both tasks. On paper, you count words yourself, and most people write more slowly by hand than they type. Practise in the format you are going to take.

You are on a phone. For the computer format, open this page on a computer: typing on a phone is much slower and doesn’t prepare you for a real keyboard. For the paper format, the phone is fine.

Welcome back – the clock goes on from where it stopped.

The 20 minutes are over. Finish your sentence and press Finish – in the real exam, you would now move on to Task 2.

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The graph below shows the number of people employed in four sectors in Canada between 1970 and 2020.

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

Write at least 150 words.

Number of people employed in four sectors in Canada, 1970–2020

Swipe the graph sideways to see all of it.

Write your answer by hand on a sheet of paper.
Watch the clock. At the end, count your words: about 10 words per handwritten line.
Press Finish when you are done.

You have written fewer than 150 words. In the exam, this loses marks for Task Achievement.

Type in your answer

The clock has stopped. Type your handwritten answer here exactly as you wrote it – mistakes included – so that your teacher can check it and you get the Quick check. Or skip this step and send a photo of your page to your teacher.

words

Your answer

Quick check

Check your own answer

My introduction is in my own words, not copied from the task.My overview gives the main trends and has no numbers.Each body paragraph has figures and years.I made comparisons: more than, while, by contrast, twice as many…I used at least five different trend words and no informal ones.No opinion and no reasons; a summary at the end gives the main trends, no numbers.

Model answer

IntroductionThe line graph illustrates how many people were employed in manufacturing, information technology, education, and forestry and fishing in Canada over the fifty years from 1970 to 2020.

OverviewOverall, IT and education grew throughout the period, while forestry and fishing shrank. Manufacturing rose and then fell, and by 2020 it had been overtaken by IT, which saw the most dramatic change of all.

Body 1Manufacturing was the largest sector for almost the whole period. It employed 1.7 million people in 1970 and grew steadily to a peak of 2.3 million in 2000. Over the next two decades, however, the figure dropped back to 1.6 million. Forestry and fishing, which had 0.6 million workers in 1970, declined gradually to half that number by 2010 and then remained stable.

Body 2In contrast, IT grew from a tiny base of just 0.1 million jobs in 1970. The number roughly doubled every decade until 2000 and continued to climb, reaching 1.7 million in 2020 and narrowly overtaking manufacturing. Education also expanded, but at a slower and steadier pace, from 0.7 million to 1.3 million.

178 words