Band 8 model answer
A model answer written to illustrate a Band 8 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 table shows the five most spoken languages in the world by number of speakers in 2020.”8
Overall
8
Task response
8
Coherence & cohesion
8
Lexical resource
8
Grammar
The table compares five major languages by the number of native speakers and total speakers (in millions) in 2020.
Overall, Mandarin Chinese had the most native speakers by a wide margin, yet English ranked first in total speakers and showed the largest gap between native and total speaker figures of any language in the table.
Mandarin Chinese led in native speakers at 920 million, nearly double the figure for Spanish (475 million), which ranked second. English (380 million), Arabic (360 million) and Hindi (345 million) occupied the lower end of the native-speaker range, with differences of less than 40 million separating them.
The total-speaker rankings told a markedly different story. English had the highest total at 1,452 million, a figure substantially above Mandarin Chinese's 1,118 million. The gap between English's native and total speaker figures was 1,072 million, by far the largest in the table, reflecting the language's widespread use as a second or international language. Hindi followed with 602 million total speakers, and Spanish with 548 million, while Arabic had the fewest total speakers at 422 million, only 62 million more than its native-speaker count. Mandarin Chinese, despite its native-speaker dominance, had fewer total speakers than English, suggesting that it was less widely adopted as an additional language.
- •Overview correctly identifies the two headline features: Mandarin native-speaker lead and English total-speaker lead with the largest native-to-total gap.
- •Separating the native-speaker paragraph from the total-speaker paragraph gives the essay a clean, logical structure.
- •The gap calculation for English (1,072 million) is a strong analytical addition derived from the data.
- •Accurate figures throughout with 'nearly double', 'only 62 million more than' for precise comparison.
- •Arabic's relatively small spread between native and total speakers could be noted one sentence earlier to further contrast with English.
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