Chapter 4.1: Writing Task 1

How to do Task 1 questions:

• Step 1: Read the instructions carefully.
• Step 2: Check the time that you begin Writing Task 1 and allow 20 minutes only.
• Step 3: Read the first paragraph and quickly scan the visual(s).
• Step 4: Read the second paragraph and underline the verbs. These tell you what to write about.
• Step 5: Write your response in at least 150 words.
 

Task 1 is a description of a visuals which can be a bar chart, or a pie chart, a line graph, a table, a diagram, a flow chart, or a map.you will need to write 150 words for Task 1. So it is important to understand the information given and make the right decision about what features to include in your writing.

1. Topic and Overview (How to begin writing)

In this chapter, we will focus on two important things you need to include in your Task 1 answer; a sentence to introduce the topic of the visual, and an overview. That is, a sentence or two sentences that summarise the main trend or trends shown in the visual. First of all, let’s focus on how to begin your answer.

To begin your answer, you need to write one or two sentences that introduce the general topic of the visual and explain the type of information that it shows.

If we copy the description word for word, the examiner will ignore any sentences that are copied directly from the question, and these words will not be counted as part of your 150 word answer. In order to write an introductory sentence, we need to paraphrase the sentence shown.

 

Instead of the word ‘chart’, you could use ‘graph’. Instead of ‘shows’, you could use ‘illustrates’, ‘gives an overview of’, or ‘gives information about’. Instead of ‘proportions’, you could use ‘percentages’. And finally, instead of the word ‘annually’, you could use 'in one year’. So, by paraphrasing a few words and phrases, we have avoided copying the question and also demonstrated a range of vocabulary to the examiner. So let’s take a look at a good example of paraphrase. Here, by paraphrasing, the candidate has shown the examiner that they have understood the information correctly and that they have some range in terms of vocabulary and grammar.

Now let’s focus on how to write an overview. An overview is usually one or two sentences. It describes the main trend or trends contained within the visual. You either put your overview at the beginning, after the introductory sentence, or at the end. It is very important to include an overview, so it may be better to include it at the beginning of your answer, just in case you are starting to run out of time. 

As you can see, the graph shows global energy consumption since 1970 by generating method. When you are analysing the graph before you start writing, it is very important to identify the main trend or trends to include in your overview. So in this case, you can see that the use of petroleum and coal fell slightly over the period. On the other hand, there were slight increases in the use of natural gas and nuclear energy. So our overview could be something like shown on picture. Now if we added an introductory sentence, the beginning of the answer would be like this. 

As you can see, the beginning of this sample answer begins with an introductory sentence to introduce the topic of the graph, followed by a clear overview. Now you will have the chance to practice writing introductory sentences and writing overview sentences, then combining the two to create the first paragraphs for a number of Task 1 answers. 

2. Analysing and Describing Key Features

 

In Task 1, it is very important to spend time carefully analysing the visuals in order to identify the key features. If you miss a key feature, this can affect your score. So, when you look at a visual, first ask yourself the following questions:  

• ‘Which places, people or things is the information about?’ , 
• ‘How many different things are being compared?’, 
• ‘What units are used to show amounts, numbers or proportions?’ and ‘
• What period of time does the visual refer to?’. 

This last question will determine what verb tenses you will use. For example, past tense, present perfect tense or even future.

• Let’s look at an example. So, first of all, which places, people or things is the information about? Well, in this case the table is about the use of atomic energy in six countries. 
• This also answers the second question, ‘How many different things are being compared?’. That is, we have to compare the atomic energy use of these six countries.
• We also need to check, ‘What units are used to show amounts, numbers or proportions?’. In this case, the table shows percentages.
•  Finally, we need to ask ourselves, ‘What period of time does the visual refer to?’. In this case, the table covers a twenty year period, from 1980 to 2000. So, what tense would you use? It's simple past tense.

 Now we need to analyse the table in more detail in order to identify the overview and the key features. How are these different? The overview is the main overall trend or trends, while the key features are the other important details contained within the visual. Remember, in Task 1, you do not need to describe every tiny detail.
Let’s look again at the table. Overall, you can see in the graph that in all countries, there was an increase in the use of atomic energy. This is our overview and could be expressed like this:
Overall, it can be seen that the general trend was upward, with all countries showing an increase in the totals of atomic energy produced.

Now, let’s focus on the key features. In order to identify them, you should ask yourself questions such as: ‘Which information is the most important?’, and ‘What are the biggest or smallest changes shown in the graph?’. So, if we again use our table as an example, let’s find some key features.

• First of all, we can see that the single biggest expansion occurred in the USA, where production rose from 0.9 to 2.71 percent. 
• Another key feature that you could mention is that Africa had the smallest increase in the use of atomic energy. 
• A further feature that you could mention is that the use of atomic energy as a percentage of total energy production roughly tripled in the UK, Japan, and the Former Soviet Union. 

Thus, whenever you have to write about visual data in Task 1, you need to spend some time analysing it, carefully looking for the overview, and the key features.

Focus on Language: Describing Data

In Task 1 of the IELTS Academic Writing Test, you are given a visual that presents some information. You need to analyse and describe this information clearly and accurately. When your paper is marked, the examiner will be assessing your grammar and vocabulary. In this section we’ll focus on the language you’ll use to write your sentences. Often you will need to describe the trends in the data, that is how the figures change over time. You will also need to make comparisons between different elements given in the graph or graphs. This means you will write about how data is similar or different. Let’s look at an example.

This line graph is about global energy consumption since 1970 by generating method. The vertical axis shows percentage figures, and the horizontal axis shows the years since 1970. We can identify two overall trends: the slight decrease in consumption of energy from petroleum and coal; and the slight increase in energy generated by gas and nuclear energy. We would mention these overall trends in the overview. 

Now, we need to write about this in more detail. When we do this, we must mention the data to support the description.

 Let’s begin with the energy source with the highest consumption, petroleum. We’ll use three expressions: 

• ‘peaked at over 50%’, 
• ‘gradually declined’; and  
• ‘has remained stable’.

 Let’s use these to make our sentences:

"The consumption of petroleum peaked at over 50% in 1973, then gradually declined over the next 12 years. Since 1985, global petroleum consumption has remained stable at 40%. "

Remember, it’s very important to include data from the graph.

Now let’s look at the global consumption of nuclear energy. 

Can you think of some words to describe this pattern? Did you think of these phrases? Notice that you need to carefully choose your tense to match the time. We’ll use past simple for finished time in the past. And we’ll use present perfect for time beginning in the past, but continuing until now. Let’s put these phrases together.

For the first decade after 1970, the rate of nuclear energy consumption was unchanged at around 5% worldwide. After 1980, it slowly increased, and since 1995 it has plateaued at 12%. 

 Notice that rather than repeating ‘the rate of nuclear energy consumption’, we can say ‘it’. This improves cohesion.

Next, we’ll focus on how to make comparisons by describing similarities and differences in something in fixed time. For this, we’ll look at a pie chart. This pie chart shows us which languages English originated from.

In an overview we would try to group the data to make a statement. We could say that as:

"Three languages Germanic languages, French and Latin, had the greatest influence in roughly equal proportions, and much less influence came from Greek, other languages and the names of people and places."

So let’s look at how we would compare each of these six influences on English. We’ll write about the dominant group first. 

• We can see that the influence of French and Latin is exactly the same at 29%, 
• and that of Germanic languages is almost as much at 26%. 
• All three of these languages together make up more than 80% of the origins of English.

Let’s write this into sentences: 

"The influence of Latin  and French on English  is  exactly the same  at  29%, and Germanic  languages have  influenced English  almost as much  at  26%.  Together, these  three language groups  make up more than  80% of the origins of  English."

  

Remember that it is very important that we give data from the chart in our sentences. Also look at how we change the use of the word ‘influence’ from a noun to a verb. This shows the examiner that you are flexible in vocabulary use.

We still need to mention the smaller sections of the pie chart. Clearly, the influence of these groups is smaller than French, Latin or Germanic Languages. We should think of words to say how much smaller. We could say considerably smaller, or significantly smaller. Here’s a short sentence about this.

"In contrast, Greek, other  languages and proper  names have had a  significantly smaller  influence on the origins of  English, at 6%, 6% and  4% respectively."

It begins with a linking expression to show that we’re moving from the more influential languages to these smaller groups of languages. The beginning of this sentence lists three parts of the pie chart: Greek, other languages and proper names. Then at the end, we gave the percentage figures for each of these languages or language groups. Notice that these figures were given in the same order as the languages. So the figure for the first language, Greek, is the first figure, 6%, and so on. To make this clear to the reader, we use the word ‘respectively’ at the end of the list. This technique works well for two or three items, but not more than that.

Skills Focus: Selecting and Grouping Information:

 

In the last paragraph of our writing, we need to summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. it means that you need to transfer information that is given visually into a clear and comprehensive written summary. You need to do more than simply list information. You need to identify, present, highlight and illustrate the important features of the visual, and organise the information that you are giving in a logical way, so that it’s easy for your reader to follow.

Let’s look at an example of how you can do this.

So now let’s look at the flow chart.

Can you see the title? 

Can you see the key features? 

And can you also see the blue arrows connecting the key features? 

This is all important information that we’ll want to include in our answer. But first, we need to come up with an overview of what this flow chart is all about. The title helps us a little. We’re told that this diagram illustrates natural gas production and distribution. But let’s just see if we can get any more information from the visual. Storage seems to also be an important stage in the process. So for our overview, we can say that this flow chart depicts natural gas production, storage and distribution. Now let’s go on to look at how we can select and group the information in the visual when we write the rest of the summary.

This visual is a flow chart, so it’s describing a process. Now, the first thing we need to do is decide where to begin our description of this process. Where would be a logical place to start? How about over here on the left? In English, we generally expect to see information presented from left to right, rather than from right to left, so that’s one clue, and the second clue is that if you look at the direction of the arrows, they all start from here, so it would make sense to start with these sources of natural gas, gas wells, oil wells, and imports. Now follow the arrows and keep going right, to the middle of the diagram. We going to group these key features together when we talk about how the gas is stored and piped between the storage areas.

Next let's focus on how the gas is transported from the regional storage facility to the retail storage facility, and finally how it makes its way from there to the home, where the retail customer is. 

So now let’s look at an example answer which identifies and presents these key features in an organised and logical way. The answer should group the features as we’ve tried to do, rather than just present a list of features in random order that aren’t connected in any way.

The diagram outlines the system used in the production, storage and distribution of natural gas.

The gas can originate from several sources.  Firstly, natural gas can be obtained  directly from gas wells. After treatment in a gas plant it is ready for distribution.  Another way of obtaining natural gas is as a by-product of oil production. Oil is  refined and the natural gas is obtained as part of the process. Thirdly, the ready-to- use gas may be imported by ship and is available for immediate distribution. 

Gas from all three of these sources is initially kept in a central underground storage facility.  It is then piped to regional storage centres. Once there, it is transported either  by 24,000 litre rail wagons, or 40,000 litre road tankers to retail outlets ready to be  sold to the public. At the retail outlets it is stored in 120,000 litre tanks. 

The final stage in the process involves delivery to individual customers by smaller 12,000 litre tanker trucks.

Notice how the writer begins with an overview of the whole process, which has three main parts: production, storage and distribution. Then, as we suggested, start your description of the key features in the flow chart with the sources. Continue your description by describing how the gas is stored. And finally, finish your description by talking about how the gas is distributed to customers. Why don’t you take a moment now to read the whole response.