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 how the UK generated its electricity in 2000 and 2020.”9
Overall
9
Task response
9
Coherence & cohesion
8
Lexical resource
9
Grammar
The two pie charts compare the sources used to generate electricity in the United Kingdom in 2000 and 2020.
Overall, the most dramatic change was the collapse of coal and the surge in renewables, which rose from a negligible share to become the single largest source of UK electricity generation by 2020.
In 2000, gas was the dominant source at 39%, followed by coal at 32% and nuclear at 23%. Renewables and other sources each accounted for just 3%, making them almost insignificant contributors. By 2020, the picture had changed substantially: renewables had surged from 3% to 43%, an increase of 40 percentage points, overtaking gas to become the largest source. Coal, by contrast, had collapsed from 32% to just 2%, a fall of 30 percentage points, reducing it to the smallest share in the later chart.
Gas remained the second largest source in 2020 at 36%, a modest decline of 3 percentage points, while nuclear fell from 23% to 17%. The 'other' category also contracted slightly from 3% to 2%. Together, these shifts reflect a fundamental restructuring of the UK electricity mix away from coal and towards renewable energy over the two-decade period.
- •Overview captures both the coal collapse and the renewables surge, naming the key shift without figures.
- •Accurate change figures: renewables +40 pp, coal -30 pp, both verified against the data.
- •Strong two-chart language: 'had surged', 'collapsed', 'overtaking', 'a modest decline'.
- •Logical structure comparing 2000 as baseline before detailing 2020 changes.
- •The closing sentence summarises the trend rather than describing data; removing or repositioning it would keep the paragraph fully descriptive.
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