Smartphone Ownership by Age Group in Four Countries, 2024
A complete IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 question with a model answer of 231 words, plus a breakdown of the sentence structures, cohesive devices and vocabulary that answer uses. Write your own version first, then compare.
Written by Manish Sharma · CELTA and DELTA qualified · 8 years teaching IELTS
Score my answer to this questionThe question
You have 20 minutes. Write at least 150 words.
The bar chart below shows the percentage of people who own a smartphone, broken down by age group, in four countries — the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and Nigeria — in 2024. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words. [Chart Data — Smartphone ownership in 2024, as a percentage of each age group] Age group | UK | USA | Japan | Nigeria 18–29 years | 98 | 96 | 95 | 71 30–49 years | 95 | 94 | 91 | 58 50–64 years | 88 | 85 | 76 | 34 65+ years | 72 | 68 | 54 | 14
How to approach it
- 01Spot the dominant bar in each country first — in this case the 18–29 group — and use it to anchor the overview
- 02Describe deviations from the dominant pattern rather than reading every bar in order
- 03Group countries by similarity (the three developed nations vs Nigeria) for a sharper contrast
- 04Use comparative magnitude language: 'a gap of more than twenty-five percentage points', 'barely a fifth'
- 05Refer to percentage points for differences and percentages for absolute values to avoid confusion
Model answer
231 words in 4 paragraphs. Read it after you have written your own, not before: the point of a model answer is to show you what you missed, and you cannot miss anything you have not attempted.
The bar chart compares smartphone ownership rates across four age groups — 18–29, 30–49, 50–64 and 65 and over — in the United Kingdom, the United States, Japan and Nigeria in 2024.
Overall, smartphone ownership in every country falls steadily as age rises, but the size of this generational gap differs sharply between the developed nations and Nigeria. The youngest age group in each country sits well above 90 per cent ownership except in Nigeria, while older Nigerians are far less likely to own a phone than their counterparts elsewhere.
Looking first at the youngest users, the dominant bar in each country, the three developed nations cluster tightly together. Ownership among 18–29-year-olds reached 98 per cent in the UK, 96 per cent in the United States and 95 per cent in Japan. Nigeria stood out as the clear deviation, with just 71 per cent in the same age band — a gap of more than twenty-five percentage points behind the next-lowest country.
The deviation widens as the age groups age. Ownership among Britons over 65 was still relatively high at 72 per cent, with the United States close behind at 68 per cent, while Japan dropped more sharply to 54 per cent. Nigeria, however, recorded just 14 per cent ownership in this group — barely a fifth of the British figure — confirming that age and country interact strongly to shape access.
What this answer actually does
Measured from the text above, and compared against the other 38 answers of the same type in this library. These are counts, not band scores: they describe what the writing does, which is the part you can copy.
23.5 more than the median answer for this task type
8 words at the shortest, 33 at the longest
the same as the median answer for this task type
carry a subordinate or relative clause
Sentence rhythm
Sentences average 25.7 words and vary by 7.5 words either side of that, running from 8 words to 33. Variation is the point. Grammatical Range and Accuracy rewards a mix of simple and complex sentences, and an answer where every sentence is the same length reads as flat no matter how correct it is. 3 of the 9 sentences here carry a subordinate or relative clause.
The cohesive devices it uses
5 in total, spread across 3 different functions. Range matters more than count: an answer that opens every paragraph with a sequencer signals its structure but never signals a relationship between ideas, and Coherence and Cohesion is marked on both.
however, while
next
overall
Vocabulary and repetition
Ignoring grammar words, 64 per cent of the content words in this answer are distinct, and 48 per cent appear exactly once. Lexical Resource is where repetition costs the most marks, and the usual cause is not a small vocabulary but reaching for the same noun every time the topic is named.
The longest run of words copied straight from the question is 11 words. That is long enough to notice. Copied wording is discounted from your word count, so a run this size is doing less work than it looks like it is doing.
What you are marked on
All four criteria carry equal weight, and your Writing band is their average rounded to the nearest half band.
Task Achievement
Cover the dominant pattern and the main deviations across both age and country axes
Coherence & Cohesion
Group countries and age groups logically rather than walking through every bar in turn
Lexical Resource
Use precise vocabulary for proportions, comparison and demographic difference
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
Use a range of comparative and complex structures across the two axes of comparison
You have read one model answer. Now get one marked.
Paste your own attempt at this question and get a band for each criterion, with the exact sentences costing you marks.
Score my answer