Task 1 Academic · Table · Housing
Home ownership and renting by age group
Twenty years of housing tenure across five age groups, where renters overtake owners in one group and the oldest overtake everyone — two ranking changes the weakest answer reads past.
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 table below shows the percentage of households in five age groups that owned their home or rented it from a private landlord in one country in 2005 and 2025.
| Age of household head | Owner-occupied 2005 | Owner-occupied 2025 | Private renting 2005 | Private renting 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18–24 | 22 | 9 | 41 | 58 |
| 25–34 | 56 | 38 | 24 | 45 |
| 35–49 | 71 | 60 | 12 | 24 |
| 50–64 | 78 | 75 | 7 | 10 |
| 65 and over | 74 | 81 | 5 | 6 |
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
Ownership falls and renting rises almost everywhere, so the story is where the order changes: renting overtakes owning among 25 to 34-year-olds and the over-65s overtake everyone. The 6.5 answer reports both changes without noticing either.
The three answers
Band 6.5
187 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 table shows the information about the percentage of households which owned their home or rented from private landlord in five age groups in 2005 and 2025.
In 2005, the owning was highest in the 50–64 group with 78 per cent, and the 65 and over group had 74 per cent. The 35–49 group had 71 per cent, the 25–34 group had 56 per cent and the 18–24 group had only 22 per cent. For renting, the 18–24 group had the most with 41 per cent3 and the 65 and over had the least with 5 per cent.
In 2025, the owning decreased in most of groups4. The 18–24 decreased to 9 per cent, the 25–34 decreased to 38 per cent1, the 35–49 decreased to 60 per cent and the 50–64 decreased to 75 per cent. But the 65 and over increased to 81 per cent. The private renting increased in all the groups, for example the 18–24 increased to 58 per cent and the 25–34 increased to 45 per cent.
Overall, young people owned less homes and rented more in 2025, and old people owned more.2
What an examiner notices
1. Task achievement
“the 25–34 decreased to 38 per cent”
Read beside 'the 25–34 increased to 45 per cent' later in the paragraph, this is the table's headline — renting has overtaken owning in this group — but the two figures are never set side by side.
2. Task achievement
“Overall, young people owned less homes and rented more in 2025, and old people owned more.”
Correct in outline, but 'young' and 'old' are left undefined and neither ranking change is mentioned. An overview on a table should name the rows that matter.
3. Coherence and cohesion
“For renting, the 18–24 group had the most with 41 per cent”
The second measure is reached by a label rather than a link, and only two of its five 2005 figures are given.
4. Lexical resource
“the owning decreased in most of groups”
'The owning' for 'home ownership' is a coinage the reader has to decode, and 'most of groups' drops the article the quantifier needs.
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.
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