Household spending: compare changing shares

Select the largest categories and changes while distinguishing percentage shares from unknown amounts of money.

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Band 7 goal: Data comparisons

Develop and connect relevant ideas or select and compare the most useful details. This is a study route, not an examiner score assigned to the answer. How IELTS Writing is assessed.

The question

The pie charts compare how an average household in a town distributed its monthly spending among five categories in 2005 and 2025. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Two fictional pie charts comparing household spending shares in 2005 and 2025. Housing rises from 30% to 35%, food falls from 25% to 18%, transport rises from 15% to 17%, leisure rises from 10% to 14%, and other spending falls from 20% to 16%.

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Read the chart data as a table

These figures belong to the original English Test Coach practice visual. They are fictional teaching data, not measured statistics about real places.

Average monthly household spending: share of total (%)
Category	2005	2025
Housing	30	35
Food	25	18
Transport	15	17
Leisure	10	14
Other	20	16
Total share	100	100

Each year totals 100%. The charts give shares, not amounts of money: a larger slice does not establish higher actual expenditure. Housing and food together account for 55% in 2005 and 53% in 2025.

The sample answer

The two pie charts compare the percentage distribution of average monthly household spending across housing, food, transport, leisure and other items in a fictional town in 2005 and 2025.

Overall, housing accounted for the largest share in both years and became more prominent by 2025, whereas food experienced the greatest decline. Transport and leisure both gained modest shares, while the proportion assigned to other spending also fell. Housing and food together still represented more than half of the budget in each year.

In 2005, housing made up 30% of household spending, five percentage points more than food at 25%. Twenty years later, the housing figure had risen by five points to 35%. Food moved in the opposite direction, dropping seven points to 18%. Their combined share therefore decreased slightly, from 55% to 53%, despite housing taking a larger part of the total.

The three smaller categories showed less dramatic changes. Transport accounted for 15% in 2005 and edged up to 17% in 2025, while leisure rose from 10% to 14%. By contrast, other expenditure declined from one fifth of the total to 16%. As the charts provide proportions only, these movements do not establish whether households spent more or less money on any category in absolute terms.

Data comparisons

How the answer works

1. Identify the charts and measure
The introduction identifies both years, all five categories and the percentage measure. It does not invent a currency or claim that the charts show total expenditure.
2. Select the main features
The overview prioritises the dominant category, the largest change and the broad direction of the remaining categories instead of listing every figure.
3. Compare the two largest categories
The paragraph compares the two initial leaders and calculates their combined share accurately. Percentage points describe differences between shares; they are not amounts of money.
4. Group the smaller categories
The final paragraph groups the smaller shares, reports exact changes and closes with the essential limitation of percentage-only data.

Apply the assessment criteria

Use these notes to identify the main features and their supporting details. Then compare a vague overview with one that selects meaningful patterns from a chart.

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Vocabulary in context

Each phrase appears in the answer above. Learn how it works, not just a replacement word.

accounted for: Constituted or made up a stated part of a complete total.
Use it with a category and share: housing accounted for 35%, not housing accounted 35%.
percentage points: The arithmetic difference between two percentages rather than a relative percentage change.
A move from 30% to 35% is an increase of five percentage points.
combined share: The total proportion obtained by adding two or more categories together.
Name the categories being combined and check that their percentages come from the same year.

Now make it your own

Write a two-sentence overview without numbers, then compare food with the three smaller 2025 categories. Explain why the charts cannot prove that actual housing costs increased.

For a smaller practice step, use the explanation, knowledge check and self-review exercise in Select and compare visual information.

The practice link opens the original question, not a copy of this answer.

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Household spending: compare changing shares

The question

The sample answer

Vocabulary in context

Now make it your own

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