Task 1 Academic · Pie chart · Housing
Energy use in an older and a newly built house
Two pie charts with very different totals, where a slice that doubles can stand for the same energy — and only the band 9 answer converts shares into kilowatt-hours consistently.
The question
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words.
The pie charts below show how energy is used in a typical house built before 1980 and a typical house built after 2015 in one country. The total amount of energy each house uses in a year is also given.
| Purpose | Older house (built before 1980) | New house (built after 2015) |
|---|---|---|
| Space heating | 60 | 30 |
| Water heating | 18 | 25 |
| Appliances and electronics | 14 | 32 |
| Cooking | 4 | 8 |
| Lighting | 4 | 5 |
A 150-word factual summary of a graph, chart, table, process or map. This prompt is original, written in the standard format for teaching purposes — it is not taken from any past paper.
What separates the three answers
Because the new house uses less than half as much energy, its larger slices do not mean larger amounts; the 6.5 answer falls into that trap, the 7.5 mostly avoids it, and the 9 builds the whole answer around it.
The three answers
Band 6.5
183 words (the task asks for at least 150)The answer works. It addresses the task, the reader follows it, and the meaning survives — but ideas stay general, linking is mechanical, wording repeats, and small errors are visible throughout.
The answer
The pie charts shows how the energy is used4 in two houses, one built before 1980 and one built after 2015, and also the total energy of each house.
In the older house, the space heating is the biggest part with 60 per cent. The water heating is 18 per cent and the appliances and electronics is 14 per cent. The cooking and the lighting are both 4 per cent, so they are the smallest parts.
In the new house, the space heating is only 30 per cent, which is half of the older house2. The appliances and electronics is 32 per cent and it is the biggest part now. The water heating is 25 per cent, so the new house uses more energy for heating water.1 The cooking is 8 per cent and the lighting is 5 per cent.
The older house uses 18,000 kWh in a year and the new house uses 8,000 kWh, so the new house uses less energy.3 Overall, the heating is the biggest part in the old house but in the new house the appliances are bigger.
What an examiner notices
1. Task achievement
“The water heating is 25 per cent, so the new house uses more energy for heating water.”
A larger share of a smaller total. The new house uses about 2,000 kWh for hot water; the older one about 3,240. The conclusion is the reverse of the data.
2. Task achievement
“which is half of the older house”
Half as a share, but in energy terms the new house uses 2,400 kWh for heating against 10,800 — less than a quarter.
3. Coherence and cohesion
“The older house uses 18,000 kWh in a year and the new house uses 8,000 kWh, so the new house uses less energy.”
The two figures that decide how every slice should be read are held back until the final paragraph.
4. Grammatical range and accuracy
“The pie charts shows how the energy is used”
Agreement error and an unnecessary article in the first line, both repeated through the answer.
One honest caveat
Band labels here describe what each piece of writing demonstrates against the four published assessment areas, paraphrased in plain language. They are teaching illustrations produced for this site, not official material, and no sample has been marked by a test provider. Real scripts are marked whole; two answers with the same label can still look quite different from each other, and nothing on this page can promise anyone a particular result.
Compare another question
- Task 1 Academic · Pie chart
How household spending changed over thirty years
Two pie charts thirty years apart, where the gains and the losses cancel out exactly — a pattern only one of the three answers notices.
- Task 1 Academic · Pie chart
Office, hybrid and remote working at one company
Three pie charts in which a dramatic middle year turns out to be the least lasting change — the answers differ in whether they see that the real winner grew only afterwards.
- Task 1 Academic · Pie chart
Where a city's household waste ended up
Two pie charts in which landfill loses its lead to recycling, and in which the quiet growth of incineration is the detail only one answer weighs.