IELTS 6 Writing Model Essay (Free sample)

Test 4 Task 1 Question

The charts below give information about USA marriage and divorce rates between 1970 and 2000, and the marital status of adult Americans in two of the years.

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

Write at least 150 words.

Test 4 Task 1 Model Essay by an Expert

The first graph displays the number of marriages and divorces in America between 1970 and 2000. The second compares the marital statuses of Americans in 1970 and in 2000. Between 1970 and 2000, rates of marriage remained consistently significantly higher than divorce rates. This concurs with the second graph, which shows that being married was by far the most common marital status amongst adult Americans in both 1970 and 2000, at 70% and 60% respectively. Whilst marriage rates remained at 2.5 million between 1970 and 1980, there was then a steady decline in the number of marriages, with 2 million in the year 2000. This is consistent with the second graph, which shows that a lower percentage of American adults were married in 2000 than in 1970.

Divorce rates reached a peak of 1.4 million in 1980, before declining back to the 1970 rate of 1 million in 2000. In 1970, being divorced was the least common marital status. In 2000, however, being widowed was slightly less common than being divorced, with a percentage difference of roughly 3%.

(178 words)