IELTS Complex Table 2017 and 2023

A model answer for an IELTS complex table for writing task 1.  The table below was reported in 2017 and again in 2023. IELTS do like to recycle writing task 1 charts, tables etc which is why you need to review tasks from previous years. It is not common to be given a table with so many categories and numbers, but when you get it, you must be prepared to group information together in a logical way rather than ignore categories completely. This model answer will help you understand how to organise the information. 

IELTS Complex Table

Download a word doc of this table by clicking: IELTS Complex Table

Source: IELTS Liz

Band 9 Table Model Answer

This model answer was provided by Tony Grace, experienced IELTS tutor. 

The tables illustrate the proportion of people assessing six aspects of one city’s life as good, average, or bad, in 1980 and 2010.

Overall, healthcare, education, and the environment were given the highest scores in both years, and transport facilities received the lowest.  Meanwhile, education’s rating rose over the period, while that of transportation fell.

In 1980, people rated healthcare, education, and the environment the highest, with over 80% approving of healthcare, while the other two had figures of 72%.  Under 10% of respondents thought these three services were bad.  As for shopping and unemployment, both had similar figures, as 62-64% expressed approval, and 22-24% said they were average.   Only a half of those surveyed gave a high score to transportation, with roughly a third stating it was bad.

Turning to 2010, the most significant changes were seen in education, as over 80% were happy with it, and in healthcare whose good rating fell to 74%.  The employment situation improved, as in 2010, almost three-quarters of those asked expressed satisfaction.  In contrast, approval of the transport facilities fell to 39%, and a similar proportion stated it was bad.  Finally, with regard to the environment and shopping, their approval levels both remained relatively unchanged.

IELTS Writing Task 1 Links

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Comments

  1. Jessica says

    Hey Liz,

    Just to let you know that I just finished the Ielts in Canada and this was my Task 1.

    • That was lucky! I hope you did well. I’ll edit the page to let people know it appeared this year as well. Good luck with your results!! 🙂

  2. Zufishan says

    The tables illustrate the outputs from toll conducted in a specific city about the quality of education, healthcare, environment, shops, employment and transport in year 1980 and 2010. Units are measure in percentage.
    Overall, people showed maximum satisfaction on good quality of healthcare in 1980 whereas the highest ranked good perspective went to education in 2010. While transport remained constantly worst ranked aspect in the city both in 1980 and 2010. Moreover, environment and employment demonstrated a growth in wide dissatisfaction of the community.
    In terms of the education, the percentage of people who expressed positive feedback stood at 72% in 1980 climbing to 82% in 2010, while increase in negative feedback over the years is only 4%. Whereas the healthcare survey results showed a 4% increase in bad comments climbing from 8% to 12% in 1990 and 2010 respectively, while good comments fell from 82% to 74%. Similar is the case with transport, which showed an increase in the negative aspects from 32% to 38% in 1990 and 2010, while neutral comments also showed an increase of 7% from 16% to 23%, the good feedback has deteriorated much from 52% to 39% in 1990 and 2010 respectively.
    On the other hand, the comments on shops remained fairly consistent over the years. While employment and environment demonstrated increase in bad feedback jumping from 6% to 16% and 10% to 23% respectively over the years.

    Can you please mark it @Liz

  3. Bùi Xuân Tú says

    The tables show the proportion of individuals taking six aspects of life: education, health care, environment, shops, employment, and transport in the random city from 1980 to 2010.
    Overall, education, healthcare, and environment have the highest figure in both tables. Transport has the lowest proportion. Meanwhile, education is rising over the period, while transport is felling.
    In 1980, citizens rated education, health care, and environment as the highest, with over 70% of them, 80% approving of healthcare, while the others had figures of 72%. Under 10% of people thought these three services were not good. Meanwhile, shopping and unemployment, both had a similar proportion, 62-64%. Approximately 22-24% of people said they were avenged. Only 16% of people surveyed transport was good.
    Moving to 2010, the most significant changes were seen in education with over 80% of it, and the employment situation has climbed up from 62 to 72%. Meanwhile, the rated healthcare was felling to 74%. In contrast, the proportion of transport fell to 39%. In the end, in terms of the environment and shopping remained unchanged significantly.

  4. Beesan says

    The two tables demonstrates a comparison between two surveys that took place in a particular city during two different years (1980 and 2010) , the surveys involved measuring and comparing five components of living standards (education, healthcare, environment, shops, employment, and transport) , the rating system for the living aspects depends on three criteria (good, neither good nor bad, and bad).

    In overall, we can notice that the majority of population in the city rated the main aspects of life as good in both surveys (1980 an 2010) . furthermore, healthcare system rating percentage was the highest in 1980 as opposed to education highest rating proportion in 2010 ,while the least rated was Transport section in both surveys.

    In more specific details, In 1980, the most satisfying aspect was Healthcare system with 82% of the population in the survey rating it as good, and only 5% bad, 23% neutral opinion . The 2nd highest percentage goes to education and environment with good rates of 72% for both , followed by shops, employment, and transport rated good by 64%, 62%, 52% respectively.

    On the other hand, in 2010, the most satisfying living aspect in the city was Education rated as good by 82% of population compared to 74% good goes to Healthcare system, followed by 72% and 71% good rating to Employment and Environment respectively , transport again take the highest bad percentage 38% and the lowest good percentage as 39%.

  5. Manan says

    The two tables illustrate the outcome of surveys done on 6 different aspects (Education, Healthcare, Environment, Shops, Employment, and Transport) of living in a specific city in the year 1980 and 2010, Results are calculated in terms of percentage.

    Overall, the transport criteria were given the worst rating in both years 1980 and 2010. On the other hand, in 1980, healthcare was the most rated aspect. While in 2010, it was education.

    In the year 1980, the education sector was rated good by 72%, neither good nor bad by 23%, and bad by 5% people whose rating rose by +10%, -12%, and +4% respectively. In the employment sector, there was a 10% increase in good criteria, a 17% downfall in neither good nor bad criteria, and a 13% surge in bad criteria.

    On the flip side, there was a downward trend in healthcare, environment, shops, and transport criteria. In goodness criteria, there was a dip of 8% in healthcare, a mere decrease of 1% in environment, 4% downfall in shops, and 13% of a drastic drop in the transport sector.

    180 words

  6. Namrata says

    The two pie charts illustrate the percentage of students joined from different countries in various subjects in northwest university.

    Overall, it can be seen the highest number of students joined the arts, science and computing subjects. Additionally, most numbers of students who joined the arts were from South America.

    It is crystal clear the lowest number of students joined subjects such as engineering, law and medicine (9%, 6% and 5%). Whereas, highest number of students contributed in subjects as followed were arts by 23 precent, computing by 22 precent and science was by 21 precent.

    The lowest number of students who joined the subject of art was from Africa Australian and Asia. On the other hand, European contributed to arts subject were 21 precent. Finally, it can be seen all students who contributed to arts subject were non us people.

    ( i have tried to describe on of the pie chart i would appreciate if you can give me feedback on this . The pie chart is from your page)

  7. Jessica Chang says

    I was wondering why the “rules” of the IELTS Writing Task 1 tell me that I shouldn’t write more than 180 words but this model answer has over 200 words. If that kind of chart will be used for my exam I i would be very frustrated knowing that I couldn’t write a report between 150 – 180 words with 2 tables given! In addition to that, it also says if I use too many words I would miss my points for the required report…. So is this really a recommended model answer or am I missing a point and we can write more than 180 words?

    • Liz says

      There are no rules of IELTS saying you should write under 180 words for task 1.

      • Hii liz,
        Thank you so much for such an amazing website! Each and every detail is so precious. Can’t express enough gratitude. I just gave my ielts today and in writing task 1 a table had come in which it was “online stores vs department stores sales for Australia in 2011”. So in my answer i had written departmental stores instead of using department stores as mentioned in the question. I thought that Departmental stores sound correct. Kindly let me know if this will result in loss of bands? thank you:))))

        • Try not to worry. This is just one error in vocabulary. Just because the word is repeated throughout your writing isn’t important. It’s just one error. When you are given words on your table, diagram, map, bar chart etc, you are suppose to use them. It is not advisable to change them. Sometimes they can be paraphrased, but mostly they will be repeated. Anyway, sound like one little blip and nothing more. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for your results 🙂 Also, if you remember the table, please email it to me so I can write a model answer to post 🙂 ieltsliz789@gmail.com

  8. It’s working ok for me. Can you check again? Try clearing your cache or using a different browser.

  9. Marian says

    Hello Liz,

    I was wondering if you could read the report I wrote regarding this exercise. I have my exam this Friday 9th and this is the third time I have to take the exam to improve my writing grade. Here it goes:

    The table illustrates the results of 2 surveys done in two different years, 1980 and 2010 on 6 aspects of a particular city (education, healthcare, environment, shops, employment and transport). Users could vote between good, neither good nor bad or bad. Units are measured in percentage.

    Overall, after 30 years more people assessed negatively all the aspects of the city. However, some of those were voted more positively in 2010, compared to those results from 1980. Nevertheless, “neither good nor bad” category did not register any particular trend between these years.

    With regards to education and employment, after three decades the survey registered a significant rise of 10% of positive votes (from 72 % to 82% and from 62% to 72%, respectively). Contrary to what we see in healthcare and transport, with a fall in “good” votes from 82% to 74% and from 52% to 39%, respectively.

    On the other hand, in terms of shops and environment, votes remained similar, without dramatic changes, from 1980 to 2010 (from 72% to 71% and from 64% to 60%, respectively).

  10. Prathamesh Kesarkar says

    Are you sure about being vague about Numbers . Cause they have clearly specified the number of people who voted for facilities.

  11. Hello Mam.Is it correct if I write my thesis statement like.. This essay agree that… And this essay will discuss about.. Etc

    • If the instructions ask for your opinion, “this essay agrees” does not represent YOUR own opinion. If the instructions ask for YOUR opinion, you must give it – I THINK / I AGREE / I BELIEVE. You are either direct or you are failing the task.

  12. Hello Liz, here I am asking your help for writing task 2.If I want to disagree a statement, whether I should give the reasons for disagree or whether I can suggest another option.For instance development of business results in a loss of cultural ties between countries. I want to disagree with this statement.My opinion is tourism may more effective than business… How can I answer for that question? please give me an idea. thanks in advance

  13. Simi fredy says

    Mam,if for task2 ,it is to discuss both views and give your opinion, can my opinion be stated in the conclusion or should it be in the body paragraphs?

    • It should be stated in the intro, body and conclusion. It is not less important than the discussion.

      • Simi fredy says

        Ok thank you mam….do you mean to say that there should be minimum 3 body paragraphs for this kind of essay….(1-one of the view,2-the other view,3-my opinion)…

  14. Thanks again Liz…….Your lessons are very much useful for me. I get 6 band overall but lowest in speaking(5 band).Could you plz tell me how to improve speaking skills.Now I again give test on 2 Dec. Plz help me Liz😔😦

  15. I want ask you about this task dear Liz. If I don’t have time to mention all aspects, can I write about the highest percentage and lowest percentage? Please, I need to know the answer.

    • You need to mention all categories but not all numbers. You select the numbers and trends that are most relevant to each category. In some cases, the highest, in some cases no change, in some cases significant drop. You choose the relevant feature. You can’t learn a rule for this. Each table is different and you need to be able to identify key features and decide how to present details.

  16. Bikram Shrestha says

    Hello Liz,
    Can an alternative overview be written as, “Overall, rating of education and employment sectors rose over time. However, in the same record of time, score of other areas depleted” ?
    I have a problem in writing overview of the task which contains comparison of data from different years, i get confused what to take as a base of my overview. Can you help me out here Liz?
    Thank you.

    • Highlight which had the highest rating and which had the lowest. Also highlight main changes. The overview in this model is 100% complete.

  17. Sara odat says

    In reading 3 paragraph .
    First. On person missing in land or island until now .
    And his adventure .

    Second. On memories .
    Contain researsher resultes about smell and experimental for study the brain.

    Final. Game theory .

    The queation for 4 section exam as you mention in all videos and pages

  18. Priyanka says

    But in this task, percentage unit was not mentioned….. can we assume that?

    • In the description given by IELTS, it mentions that the units are percentage. In the introduction of the model answer, it states: “The tables illustrate the proportion..” this means percentage.

  19. MD Mahabub Alam says

    Would you please share with me how to write task 2 of advantage or disadvantage, .
    Thanks

  20. “Meanwhile, healthcare’s rating rose over the period, while that of transportation fell.”
    Healthcare’s rating decline not rise

  21. pardeep sandhu says

    Thnku vry much 😊

  22. Please my tell me about task 2 I fill my 25 November

  23. Sara odat says

    On 4th.Nov .2017
    Writting task 1 : map and graph shows physical size and population gtowth in Egyption city of Alexandaria
    Task 2 : in education and employment , some people work harder than other .
    What are the reasons ?
    Is it good to work harder ?

    • Sara odat says

      Speaking test in 3th.Nov. 2017
      Are you work or study and some question about that .
      Are you prefer ring or any jularies ?
      Why ?ifyou give any one gift of jularies?

      Card: about any website help you ?
      How know about it ?
      What content ?
      Advantage of website ?
      Advice for other people to used?

      Using internet for learning children ?
      Do you agree with can replacement the face to face learning ?

      Transportation
      Do you prefer bus ?
      In future will you try to use buses?

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