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 line graph shows the share of adults classified as obese in four countries from 1990 to 2020.”8
Overall
8
Task response
8
Coherence & cohesion
8
Lexical resource
8
Grammar
The line graph illustrates the percentage of adults classified as obese in the USA, the UK, Brazil and Japan between 1990 and 2020.
Overall, obesity rates rose in all four countries across the period, with the USA recording both the highest levels and the steepest absolute increase. Japan remained consistently and markedly lower than the other three throughout.
In 1990 the USA had the highest rate at 23% of adults, climbing steadily to 35% by 2010 and reaching 42% in 2020, a rise of 19 percentage points over three decades. The UK began at 14% in 1990 and increased to 21% by 2000, continuing upward to 28% by 2015, where it appeared to plateau, remaining at 28% in 2020. Brazil followed a consistent upward path from 9% in 1990 to 24% in 2020, more than doubling over the period.
Japan showed a markedly different pattern. Starting at just 2% in 1990, the rate grew only very slowly, reaching 4% by 2010 and edging to 4.5% in 2020. By 2020 the gap between Japan and the USA stood at 37.5 percentage points, underlining the considerable divergence across these four nations.
- •Overview accurately highlights the universal rise, the USA's dominant position, and Japan's exceptional divergence.
- •The UK's plateau after 2015 is correctly identified as a notable feature distinguishing it from the others.
- •Brazil's near-doubling is precisely noted, adding strong trend vocabulary to the analysis.
- •Japan's contrast is handled in a separate paragraph, making the comparison structurally clear.
- •The 2005 data points are not used; including the UK's 2005 value would better illustrate whether growth was steady or front-loaded.
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