Question
Answer
The line graph displays information about a disease called “whooping cough” in the United Kingdom
over a fifty-year period, beginning in 1940. It charts the number of reported cases against the
prevalence of vaccination programmes. It can be determined that instances of whooping cough
declined after vaccination was introduced, rose again when it stopped, and then virtually
disappeared when vaccination rates covered almost all of the population.
Prior to the introduction of whooping cough vaccinations in the United Kingdom, the number of
cases fluctuated wildly between sixty thousand and a hundred and seventy thousand cases per year.
From the first year of vaccination onwards, this number fell rapidly until whooping cough was nearly
eradicated in the sixties and seventies. At this point, with the disease nearly vanquished, vaccination
rates dropped to just thirty percent, causing a spike in the number of cases. As the vaccination
programme restarted, whooping cough continued to be a problem until vaccinations covered almost
all of the population, at which point the disease virtually disappeared. By the twenty-first century,
there was only a negligible number of cases.
Note:
This task was extremely complex and required an unusually long introduction. Because of that, I did
not want to group my later descriptions into two paragraphs. I felt this would not leave enough
room for a thorough and accurate description. As such, this is a rare case of a two-paragraph IELTS
essay.
