Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Task Achievement
overview
trends
features
accuracy
Answers
which two points stop you from getting band 6?
No data (i.e. no numbers) in the description and/or no overview. The student also focuses too much
on detail.
what is an overview and why is it important?
An overview presents the main or general trends that can be seen in the graph, e.g.Overall, the
sales of desktop computers declined significantly during the period. Without an overview, the
student will not get band 6
what could be classified as irrelevant, inaccurate and inappropriate details?
Inappropriate:any evaluation or personal comments on the data. Irrelevant:data that is not
presented, comments which do not relate to the graph.Inaccurate:factual mistakes in the
description (e.g. with dates or numbers)
how is band 7 specifically better than band 6?
The overview is clear and there are no inaccurate or inappropriate information as described above
in point 3.
1. Introduce the graph paraphrase this is where underlining key words on the exam
paper comes in handy
2. Give an overview this is where your notes on the graph are useful
3. give the detail this is when you are trying to use vocabulary and finer descriptions
you havent already used
2. Give an Overview
You also need to state what the main trend or trends in the graph are. Dont give detail such as
data here you are just looking for something that describes what is happening overall.
One thing that stands out in this graph is that one type of fast food fell over the period, whilst the
other two increased, so this would be a good overview.
Here is an example:
Overall, the consumption of fish and chips declined over the period, whereas the
amount of pizza and hamburgers that were eaten increased.
This covers the main changes that took place over the whole period.
You may sometimes see this overview as a conclusion. It does not matter if you put it in the
conclusion or the introduction when you do an IELTS writing task 1, but you should provide an
overview in one of these places.
As you can see, the focus is on fish and chips. This does not mean you should not mention the other
two foods, as you should still make comparisons of the data as the questions asks.
The second body then focuses on the other foods:
In sharp contrast to this, teenagers ate the other two fast foods at much higher levels.
Pizza consumption increased gradually until it overtook the consumption of fish and chips
in 1990. It then leveled off from 1995 to 2000. The biggest rise was seen in hamburgers,
increasing sharply throughout the 1970s and 1980s, exceeding fish and chips
consumption in 1985. It finished at the same level that fish and chips began, with
consumption at 100 times a year.
Look at these Task 1 answers by previous candidates, what linking words can you see
being used? When, where, and how often are they used?
Lexical Resource
Lexical Resource
Your use of vocabulary, your spelling and the number of mistakes will affect your score.
Planning is key!
Discuss what you do to plan for your writing in the
exam
Some techniques
Useful Vocabulary
Starting
Presentation Type
Verb
Description
diagram / table /
figure / illustration /
graph / figure /
chart / flow chart /
picture/
presentation/ pie
chart / bar graph/
line graph / table
data/ data /
information
shows / represents /
depicts /
illustrates /
presents/ gives /
provides / describes
/ compares/ shows /
figures / gives data
on / gives
information on/
presents
information about/
shows data about
the comparison of .
the differences .
the number of .
information on .
data on .
the proportion of.
the amount of .
information on..
Useful Vocabulary
Mistakes when using words
will affect your band score.
To get band score 6, you
must only have some errors
with a range of vocabulary.
To get band score 7, you
must have few errors with a
good range of vocabulary.
Practice
Answers
Common Mistakes
Articles
Plurals
Uncountable nouns
Punctuation (commas and full stops)
Noun verb agreement (remember that third person singular in the present tense has
an s)
Verb tense
Prepositions (in/on/at etc)
http://ieltsliz.com/grammar-ielts-writing-task-1/
Practice writing
Some techniques:
Connectives and linking words Firstly, initially, subsequently, due to this, however
Synonyms
Tenses
Graph description words rises, falls, plummets, remains the same etc.
Time to practice