IELTS Task 1: Percentages and Percentage Points

Support the main features with accurate detail

IELTS Academic Task 1 asks candidates to select and report the main features of visual information and make relevant comparisons. A comparison should help the reader understand a significant relationship, rather than simply decorate the response with more numbers.

This article practises a narrow part of that task: writing accurate comparison sentences. It is not a full Task 1 response or a replacement for an overview. The official IELTS writing resources linked below explain the wider task.

Use this invented dataset

The figures below are fictional practice data about travel choices in a made-up workplace survey. They are not observations about workers in Kolkata, Spantach Academy learners or transport demand. Both years use the same measure: percentage of respondents choosing each main travel mode.

For this exercise, assume the same categories and survey question were used in both years. Check that comparability before writing about real data.

Make three different comparisons

First compare categories within a single year. In 2025, the bus figure is 50% and the train figure is 30%. The gap is 20 percentage points. This tells the reader about the relationship between two categories at the same point in time.

Next compare the same category across years. The bus share moves from 40% to 50%, an increase of 10 percentage points. A relative percentage increase is a different calculation: 10 divided by 40, multiplied by 100, equals 25%. You do not need to include both forms; choose clear, relevant wording.

Finally, describe an exact ratio only where the figures support it. The bus share in 2025 is two and a half times the share for other modes, because 50 divided by 20 is 2.5. Prefer this explicit wording to an ambiguous claim about being “times more”.

Repair an inaccurate sentence

Consider this deliberately incorrect sentence: “The number of bus passengers increased by 10%.” The dataset gives survey percentages, not passenger counts. It also shows a ten-percentage-point change, not a relative increase of ten per cent.

A safer revision is: “The share of respondents choosing the bus increased by 10 percentage points, from 40% to 50%.” This preserves the measured quantity and makes the change checkable.

Do not add a cause such as cheaper fares unless the visual or accompanying information provides it. A chart can show a change without explaining why it happened.

1. Write a sentence comparing train travel across the two years.
2. Calculate the 2024 gap between bus and train shares.
3. Check that your sentence says “share” or “proportion”, not an unsupported passenger count.
4. Answer check: train share fell by 5 percentage points; the 2024 bus–train gap was 5 percentage points.

Use a final accuracy pass

Read each comparison while pointing to the two figures that support it. Check the year, category, unit and direction of change. Remove any adjective that exaggerates what the figures show.

Then look at the paragraph as a whole. Have you selected a useful relationship, or listed every value separately? Accuracy and selection work together; a long string of correct numbers can still hide the main pattern.

When asking Spantach Academy about IELTS preparation batches, mention whether you need help selecting features, constructing comparisons or checking numerical language. Ask about timings and the next enrolment step without assuming a particular score or outcome.