#IELTS Writing Task 1: "Other"

If you've seen enough IELTS tasks, you'll know the pesky "other" category is very common. Why pesky? Because sometimes it's hard to weave it into the sentence smoothly.

Sentences like "The category "other" showed no change" might be correct, but they don't show much skill.

Different solutions are possible, but here are two important things to do:

1️⃣ See if you can use a shell noun: other what? Other regions, other purposes, other uses, other reasons etc. This will probably allow you to have a better sentence structure.

2️⃣ It must be clear that you mean "other than the listed categories." Typically, "other" is the smallest and the last category - but not always!

Here is my sentence for the task in the picture.

"The government was responsible for 6% of water used, while the remaining purposes (unspecified and grouped together under “other”) accounted for a mere 3% of water consumption."

And here are some sentences from other answers:

1️⃣ "Finally, when it comes to smallest volumes, Africa’s use makes up 3.35%, and that in the other regions around 2.5%." (Here, "other" can be smoothly woven into the sentence as the last region in the task.)

2️⃣ "The remaining shares are significantly smaller: 18% come from unspecified regions and a further 10% from Asia." (Here, "other" wouldn't work because it's not the last category. So I resorted to "unspecified.')

Any other ways? Share in the comments. ⬇️

This post is an answer to a question from a subscriber. I like good questions. ❤️