Writing Task 1 (week 5)

Revision
Combined sources
Revision: Task 1 so far

- bar chart - pie chart

- compares values and categories - percentages
- can be amounts or percentages - fractions
Language for an overview
The most salient feature is…
Language for bar charts
Coupled with the decline in…
Continued growth (with a timeline)
A drastic decrease
Language for pie charts
Four-fold increase
Substantial fall
Accounts for more than half of… ( _%)
Proportion of…
A drop of approximately 1/3
Dramatic drop
Significant decline
Comprising 4% in 2016, compared to 3% in
2040
- line graph
- expresses change over time
- x-axis = time
- y-axis = usually amounts/ values
- verbs of movement, e.g. increase, decrease
- extreme verbs of movement, e.g. rocket, soar, crash
- adverbs of manner (speed), e.g. gradually, quickly
Line graphs
Level off
There was an upswing (+)
That underwent a downturn
Dipped as low as 1000
Fluctuated between 2 and 3 thousand
Climbed moderately
- Tables are used to represent large amounts of information
- If table represents years = changes over time = treat like line
graph
- find patterns under the horizontal and vertical headings
- do not compare apples with oranges (cause Ali said so)
- look for extremes
- compare and contrast
Language for Tables
No correlation between
strikingly higher than
Lags far behind (-)
A two-fold jump
Surpassing __ by 10
Is roughly equal to …
___ is also ahead (+) in terms of ___ (%)
- Cycles (natural or man-made 
active vs. passive voice)
- no definite start or end (cannot
use ‘to start with’ or ‘finally’)
Present tense
- No summary/conclusion ->
cycles repeat!

- Processes (can be natural or

man-made, e.g. bees make
honey/ recycling plastic)
- Mostly in passive voice
- Present tense
- Expressing purpose, cause and
result
Combined sources
It is very common in IELTS that you will
see two or more sources.

examples:
 bar chart + line graph
 table + pie chart
 cycle + process
 map + map
 bar chart + bar chart
 B

A
What do you notice about these
four IELTS Writing Task 1 visuals?

D
C
How to deal with multiple diagrams
Fixed parts of each diagram are Fixed parts are different
the same
e.g. when the vertical and horizontal e.g. Two different diagrams (table +
axes in two graphs both measure the pie chart), (but same time)
same thing
(but different times)
 Describe each diagram
 Focus on comparison between separately with only the
the diagrams summarizing sentence making a
comparison/ linking the two.
Describe
each, then
link

Compare and
contrast

Focus on comparison between the diagrams or describe each

separately, then link them?
WORKSHEET – page 1
Look at the bar charts ....
Multiple diagram paragraph plan for diagrams with the same fixed parameters

Paragraph 1: Say what the diagrams show in your own words. Describe the most important
features (biggest, smallest, greatest change, etc.) and compare the diagrams.
Paragraph 2: Describe the other features and compare
Summarizing sentence: End with an ‘Overall, …/ To sum up,….’ Sentences summarizing
the main feature of both diagrams.
Multiple diagram paragraph plan for diagrams with different parameters
Paragraph 1: describe parameter 1 (data source 1)
Paragraph 2: describe parameter 2 (data source 2)
Summarizing sentence: compare/ link the two sources
worksheet
Now try yourself……

worksheet