Hi there everyone,

Well I hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year, weren’t the fireworks wonderful? Now it is time to get to work, I know a lot of you have IELTS examinations booked and as I am most frequently asked about the writing exam, let’s start there.

Today we will look at the Academic Task 1 – this is descriptive writing about a diagram and there are five different types of diagram that you may be asked to write about:

 - Line graphs

 - Bar charts or Column graphs

 - Pie Charts

 -Tables

 -Process (this one is not so common)

Remember you only have to write 150 words, so it is important to select the most significant

Information to write about. What does significant mean? Well - things like, the highest or the lowest numbers, the biggest changes or surprising or unexpected results.

If you only write 140 words you will lose a mark for Task Achievement, writing too many words is a waste of time, there are no extra marks available and the time would be better spent on Task 2.

The structure is very important – there must be an Introduction and a body but a conclusion is not essential.

Introduction – a short paragraph of 1 or 2 sentences, generally the first sentence should be a

PARAPHRASE of the question. To get the higher IELTS grades you MUST present a CLEAR overview of the main trends, differences or stages.

Body – Generally two paragraphs. Make sure you select APPROPRIATE information, a purely mechanical listing of the data will generally not score higher than a 5 for task achievement. Remember to include DATA to support your statements. Use suitable vocabulary to describe trends and changes, as well as the language of comparison.

Vocabulary examples:

Increase, decrease, gradual, slight, significant, to reach a peak, to remain stable, respectively, half, double, from….to, between …. and …..

Make sure you are comfortable using such vocabulary.

General Advice (to obtain the higher grades):

- Write a MINIMUM of 150 words

- No personal opinions or advice

- Avoid using personal pronouns such as ‘I’ or ‘We’, remember this is Academic writing,

   description only

- Do not use contractions – i.e. write ‘cannot’ not ‘can’t’

- Use cohesive devices effectively to link sentences in paragraphs i.e. However, firstly, secondly, since etc, vary the ones you use, do not repeat the same ones.

- Make sure your referencing is clear and appropriate

Most importantly PRACTISE, PRACTISE, PRACTISE – there is no substitute!

In the next article we will look at Task 2.

Good luck!

Your online teacher. (Teacher@www.eapsuccess.com)