Band 9 model answer
A model answer written to illustrate a Band 9 response to this question, with the rubric breakdown and what carries it. Written by us as a teaching example, not a verified exam script.
“The pie charts show the global market share of mobile operating systems in 2015 and 2023.”9
Overall
9
Task response
9
Coherence & cohesion
8
Lexical resource
9
Grammar
The two pie charts compare global mobile operating system market share in 2015 and 2023.
Overall, the most striking change was that iOS nearly doubled its share over the period, largely at the expense of Android, while the 'other' category almost disappeared entirely by 2023.
In 2015, Android dominated the market with a commanding 80% share, while iOS accounted for 16% and other operating systems made up the remaining 4%. By 2023, Android's share had fallen by 10 percentage points to 70%, though it remained by far the largest platform. iOS, by contrast, rose from 16% to 29%, a gain of 13 percentage points that brought it to just under a third of the global market.
The most dramatic proportional change affected the 'other' category, which shrank from 4% in 2015 to just 1% in 2023, suggesting that the market had consolidated almost entirely around the two dominant platforms. Together, Android and iOS accounted for 96% of the market in 2015 and 99% in 2023, underlining the near-total duopoly that had emerged by the later year.
- •Overview identifies the two key trends, iOS growth and Android decline, and the near-disappearance of 'other', without numbers.
- •Accurate change figures: iOS +13 pp, Android -10 pp, 'other' from 4% to 1%.
- •Strong two-chart comparative language: 'rose from', 'fell by', 'by contrast', 'had consolidated'.
- •Effective combined figure (96% to 99%) to illustrate the duopoly narrative.
- •Could quantify the 'other' category's fall as a proportional decline (down 75%) to add analytical weight alongside the percentage-point figure.
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