How to write IELTS Academic Writing Task 1: the complete guide

In Academic Writing Task 1 you get a chart, table, diagram or map and have 20 minutes to describe it in at least 150 words. You are not asked for your opinion, and you are not asked to explain why anything happened. The whole task is this instruction, printed under every question: summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Task 1 counts for one third of your Writing score and Task 2 for two thirds, so spend about 20 minutes here and keep 40 for the essay.

The six types of visual

• Line graphs: change over time. See the line graph guide.
• Bar charts: comparisons between categories, sometimes over time. See the bar chart guide.
• Pie charts: parts of a whole, usually compared across two years. See the pie chart guide.
• Tables: many exact figures, where you must find the pattern yourself. See the table guide.
• Process diagrams: stages in how something is made or how a natural cycle works. See the process diagram guide.
• Maps and plans: how a place changed, or how it will change. See the map guide.

Some questions combine two of these, for example a pie chart and a table. Treat each as one source of information and look for a link between them.

The four-paragraph structure

The same structure works for every type:

1. Introduction (one sentence). Say what the visual shows, in your own words. Do not copy the question.
2. Overview (two sentences). The two or three most important features, with no numbers. This is the most important paragraph you will write.
3. Body paragraph 1. The details of one group of features, with figures.
4. Body paragraph 2. The details of the other group, with figures.

There is no conclusion. Your overview already does the job a conclusion would do, and putting it second means the examiner sees it straight away.

If you remember one thing: write a paragraph that starts with Overall, and says what is most obvious about the visual without any numbers. A missing overview is the most common reason Task 1 answers stay at band 5 or 6.

How to write the overview

Look at the visual for 30 seconds before you write anything and ask:

• What is the biggest or the smallest?
• What is the general direction: up, down, stable, converging?
• What is the biggest change, or the exception to the pattern?
• For a process: how many stages, and where does it start and end? For a map: what is the general change?

Two of these answers make your overview. “Overall, car use declined while rail and cycling grew, although the car remained the most common way of getting to work” is a band 7 overview. “Overall, there were many changes” is not.

Choosing which numbers to use

You cannot report every figure, and you should not try. Select:

• the start and end of each important trend,
• the highest and lowest points,
• any crossing point where one line or bar overtakes another,
• the exception that breaks the pattern.

Then compare instead of listing. “Nine times that of Country C” or “more than double the figure for men” shows the examiner that you understand the data, not just that you can copy it. The language for describing trends guide has the words you need.

How Task 1 is marked

Task 1 has four criteria, each a quarter of the score:

• Task Achievement: a clear overview, the key features selected and supported with figures, and accurate data. This replaces Task Response from Task 2.
• Coherence and Cohesion: logical grouping of information into paragraphs, and linking that helps rather than decorates.
• Lexical Resource: precise vocabulary for trends and comparisons, varied without being unnatural.
• Grammatical Range and Accuracy: a mix of sentence types, used accurately, with the right tenses for the time shown.

The mistakes that cost the most

• No overview, or an overview full of numbers.
• Describing every figure in order, with no grouping and no comparison.
• Giving reasons or opinions (“this is because people became more environmentally aware”) that the visual does not show.
• Wrong tense: past for past years, present for diagrams and maps that show how things are now, future forms for projections.
• Writing under 150 words. Use the word counter with its Task 1 setting to practise with a 20-minute timer.

See it done

Read the Task 1 sample answers, one model for every type with the key features and notes on all four criteria. A good first one is the bar chart on commuting.