Describe a chart

Writing Task 1
What is IELTS Writing Task 1
Writing Task 1 Marking Criteria

• The examiner will assess your writing on the 4 marking criteria

below. Each criterion is worth 25% of your total marks for writing
task 1.
• Task Achievement
• Coherence and Cohesion
• Lexical Resource (Vocabulary)
• Grammatical Range and Accuracy
 The examiner will check your information, overview, detail and accuracy.

You can increase your score, if you:

analyze the chart and identify all key features

Task highlight your key features in an overview

Achievement supporting your body paragraph with data (numbers and dates if possible)

avoid putting in information which is wrong

avoid an opinion

write a factual report

write over 150 words (penalty for under word count)

 Your organization of information, your paragraphing and your
use of linking devices will be marked.

You will increase your score, if you:

Coherence plan where to put your information

and have four body paragraphs (structure and paragraphing)

Cohesion
use a range of linking devices

avoid mistakes with linking words

use referencing (this, it, etc)

 Your use of vocabulary, your spelling and the number of mistakes
will affect your score.

Your score will increase, if you:

Lexical
use a range of vocabulary

Resource use vocabulary for presenting accurate data

understand collocations (matching verbs with nouns)

avoid spelling mistakes

don’t use the wrong words or informal language

 You will get a band score for your sentence structures, tenses,
control of grammar and the number of mistakes.

You will increase your score, if you:

Grammatical use a range of sentence structures

Range and use the right tense for the chart given to you
Accuracy
adjective noun / verb
use the right word order
adverb

avoid mistakes (see table above to learn how mistakes affect your
score)

use the right punctuation

Look at page 191 in your IELTS
book
 Introduction
Report
Organization Overview

Body
INTRODUCTION
Writing Task 1
In introduction you have to
simply paraphrase the
question in a creative way.
Use the appropriate
vocabulary to paraphrase
the statement.
 How to paraphrase?

The line graph below shows the car sales in

the USA, 2000-2010.

The (1) [line graph] (2) [gives information

about] (3) [the number of] (4) [cars were
sold in USA] (5) [from 2000 to 2010].
 It should not be longer than 1-2
sentences.

Rule of an Paraphrase the given question

Introduction statement.
Paragraph Don’t include your personal
views.

No need to include general

statement
1. The chart illustrates mobile phone use among
different age groups in the UK in 2015.

2. The graph gives an overview on spending on

mobile phones and landlines in the USA over a
ten-year-period from 200 to 2010.

3. The graph shows which services people used

on their smartphones over a four-year period.
OVERVIEW
Writing Task 1
In this section of the report,
you must write the overview
statement and show the
overall features of the report
which does not include the
numbers but just general
features.
 Always try to write two sentences. This forces you to
describe two main or general features of the graph, chart or
diagram.

Don't put any numbers in your overview. Save specific

numbers for the 'details' paragraphs.

Rules of an If the graph or chart shows a time period (e.g. years), look
for the overall change from the beginning to the end of the
Overview period (e.g. from the first year to the last year).
Look for overall trends, and ignore individual figures that don't fit the
trend. For example, if a graph shows a rising trend overall, you can
ignore a specific year when the figures decreased - save that year for your
'details' paragraphs.

If no time period is shown, you can't look for trends.

Instead, look for differences and similarities between items.
1. We can see from the chart that under-25s spent more
time on mobiles than any other age group.

2. The line graph shows that considerably more people

used their phones to access the internet rather than
make phone calls, and the gap between the two is
growing.

3. The line graph shows that although people spent more

money on landlines in the first half of the study, mobile
phone expenditure became higher from 2006 onwards.
 How many trends can you
see?

1
22 3
increase
decrease
Now, try to write an overview on the
comment section of this video!
BODY
Writing Task 1
In body paragraphs, you must
include the comparisons and
summarize the important
attributes of figure. In this
section, you can include
numbers. You must not include
all the records and details.
The graph below shows the amounts of waste
produced by three companies over a periodCompanyA waste was at 12 tonnes, 4 tonnes higher
years.
of 15
How do you write the
than that for company B in 2000. There was a
decline from 2005 fordetail?
both companies. In the 15-
year period, there was a sharp decline in the waste
of companyHow many
A from 12 toparagraphs?
8 tonnes. Moreover, 8
tonnes of trash was created by company B in 2000,
which slightly grew in 2005, but later steeply
decreased to 3 tonnes in 2015.

In company C, there were 4 tonnes of waste

produced in 2000, its amount was 4 tonnes lower
than that for company B. However, a significant rise
was witnessed in the number created garbage in
company C of 6 to 10 tonnes in 2015.
 • Find the graph with the
Find your description that you have
graph