The first step in writing a good Task 1 answer is to make sure you understand exactly what you are asked to do and what the graph, table, diagram or map shows.
The instructions for Task 1 questions are:
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
The key instructions there are summarise, select, report and make comparisons. The other key point is that it asks for the main features – not all the features. But before you start selecting which details you are going to report and what comparisons you are going to choose, you need to make sure you understand exactly what the diagram or table shows and that you can summarise its main purpose. This will help you to complete two very important steps in writing your answer.
- Writing your opening introductory sentence.
- Writing an overview of the data.
Both of these are essential if you want to get a good score for Task Achievement. In this step we’ll look at writing the introduction sentence, then in the next step we’ll look at how to write the overview.
Look at this example:
The graph below shows the proportion of four different materials that were recycled from 1982 to 2010 in a particular country.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Recycling rates (Click to expand, click back to return to this page)
In your opening sentence, you need to say how the information is presented – in this case a line graph – what it shows and, if there is a time period, what dates it covers. As you can see, all that information is already in the question. Your job is to paraphrase that into your own words.
Paraphrasing means saying something in a different way, keeping the same meaning but using your own words. There are several different ways you can do this:
- Use synonyms - for example, you could use rise in place of increase or glass bottles and jars in place of glass containers.
- Change the part of speech - for example changing the gerund recycling into the verb form and talk about how people recycle.
- Change the word order - for example, ‘four different materials that were recycled’ can be changed to ‘people recycled four materials’, as in ‘the amount that people recycled four different materials’. This may require other changes, like the active-passive one here, or it may simply involve taking information from the second clause of a sentence and moving it to the front.
You don’t have to change every word - key terms like recycling, plastics, aluminium cans etc. will stay the same. You can also add details from the diagram to the information in the question to make a new sentence.
Let’s break down the example above.
The graph below shows the proportion of four different materials that were recycled from 1982 to 2010 in a particular country.
The words and phrases in bold can all be changed in some way to make the description your own. How could you change or add to:
1. The graph…
2. … the proportion of …
3. … four different materials …
4. … from 1982 to 2010 …
5. … in a particular country …
Remember, some of the changes might seem very small, while in others you might change the wording completely. One other small point to remember – in the question it says ‘the graph below’. But in your answer there IS no graph below, so don’t include the word below.
Write your answers in the comments, then join them together to make your own introductory sentence. You can find the answers in the Downloads section below.
IELTS_WRITING_STEP_1.8_ANSWER.pdf
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