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 bar chart shows the share of renewable energy in total final energy consumption in five countries in 2010 and 2020.”9
Overall
9
Task response
9
Coherence & cohesion
8
Lexical resource
9
Grammar
The bar chart shows the proportion of final energy consumption supplied by renewable sources in five countries in 2010 and 2020.
Overall, Iceland and Sweden had substantially higher renewable energy shares than the other three countries in both years, and all five nations increased their proportions over the decade. Iceland led throughout, while the USA had the lowest share in both years.
Iceland's renewable share stood at 76% in 2010 and rose to 82.9% by 2020. Sweden also recorded a considerable increase, from 44.7% to 57.8%, maintaining second place throughout. Germany more than offset its relatively low starting point by rising from 11.6% to 18.5%, while China grew from 12.3% to 14.9%, a more modest gain that nonetheless kept it just ahead of Germany in 2010, though Germany surpassed China by 2020.
The USA had the lowest share in both years, increasing from 7.4% to 11%, a rise of 3.6 percentage points. By contrast, Sweden's gain of 13.1 percentage points was the largest absolute increase among the five countries. The gap between Iceland and the USA widened marginally from 68.6 percentage points in 2010 to 71.9 percentage points in 2020, reflecting a continuing disparity between the two extremes despite universal growth.
- •Overview identifies the leaders, the universal direction of change, and the USA's position at the bottom.
- •Correctly notes Germany overtaking China between 2010 and 2020, a key sub-pattern in the data.
- •Sweden's 13.1 percentage point gain is identified as the largest absolute increase, adding a precise analytical finding.
- •Strong comparison language: 'more than offset', 'modest gain', 'widened marginally', 'universal growth'.
- •Could note Iceland's share in 2020 as a fraction of its total energy mix (over four-fifths) to add one more vivid proportional expression.
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