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How To Write IELTS Writing Task 1 Academic | IELTS By Zahid Sir
If you want to write IELTS writing task one in the best way possible, you will have to understand the exam pattern because it requires you to write at least 150 words in response to the visual description in the form of a graph, table, chart or process. You have to understand the factual information in such a way that you may present the report by mentioning the main features in under 20 minutes.
Task one consists of 33% of the total marks in the writing test because it contributes half as many marks to your score as task 2.
Understand the assessment and marking criteria
You have to understand all the four criteria i.e. task achievement, cohesion and coherence, lexical resource, and grammatical range and accuracy and these four criteria will help you understand the way you need to write task one. Each of the criteria carries 25% marks and you have to give proper attention to each criterion.
Paraphrasing will always be advantageous
Once you understand the question type, you must be an expert to paraphrase the question. There are seven question types in task one and if you have to master writing task 1, you will have to understand these question types:
- Bar chart
- Line graph
- Table chart
- Pie chart
- Process diagram
- Map
- Multiple graphs
In all these question types, you must know the way to paraphrase the question for you to make it easier to write the answer.
Don’t forget to write the overview
It is only after paraphrasing the question, it will be easier for you to write and you have to go through at least three to four main features of the visual description to mention them in the most accurate manner without taking the help of the data.
Make your points to support the main idea
Once you enter the paragraph to write your answer in detail, you must support the idea that you are presenting with the actual data mentioned in the given graph. If your writing matches factually with the data given in the graph, it will make your writing more effective for you to get better bands.
Recheck before you move on
Rechecking your answers and looking for small mistakes such as spelling and common grammatical errors will always be fruitful for you as you may find some of the errors which you must not have made intentionally. Correct your errors and then be ready to move on to task 2 in the most confident way.
There are certain things that you must not do while attempting task one (academic) and these things have been mentioned as follows:
You should not use the same words to mention percentages and numbers and if you want to use percentages, you have to use the words like a higher, lower, small, large percentage of …….
In the same way, if you want to mention numbers, you will have to use the words like few, fever, more, most, and many.
You should never give your personal opinion
Writing task one is not about giving your opinion as it is not related to a discursive essay like in the case of task two. You have to write exactly the plans and the data that you see in the graph. And if any type of information is not available in the data, you should not add any type of new information.
Be careful not to use bullet points, abbreviations, or notes.
Using abbreviations of any word or using bullet points to mention some important features will not give you good bands. You have to write the visual description in paragraphs only.
You should not write each and everything from the graph
You have to pick up the main data from the diagram and mention that only. Having data doesn’t mean that you have to mention 100% data in your writing and if you try to do this, it will take away your precious time and you will not be able to complete your task one on time and you’ll start panicking to complete task two as well.
Avoid copying words from the question or the information given in the graph
You have to use some original vocabulary which will let the examiner feel that you have a great collection of words to use. Examiner must feel that you have great commandment over the language and you have a great list of vocabulary from which you can choose to use in the most appropriate place. While writing task 1 or task 2, you should also avoid informal language because you are asked to present your writing style in the most formal way while avoiding words which come under the category of slang.
Conclusion
You don’t need to be somebody who’s completely analytical in terms of understanding grammar but you just need to have great commandments over the English language so that you may look at the information given in the diagram and just present the same in your writing. Examiner wants to check how well you are able to put your words to present the fact given in the diagram and if you can do that successfully, you’ll be able to make the examiner feel impressed with your writing.
Keeping important things in mind and understanding subject-verb agreement and knowing the way your answers will be assessed based on some fixed areas will definitely help you get your desired bands and even more than that. And if you can practice your writing task 1 keeping in mind all the points given above, nobody can stop you from getting over 8 bands in your writing. Once you’re able to successfully write task 1 (academic), it will boost your confidence to write task 2 in the best way possible and it will definitely increase your chances of getting better bands than you ever expected.
I hope you have got the answer to the question of how to write IELTS writing task 1 academic and if you have any suggestion, you can definitely put it in the comment section below.
Also Read- Who is Mark Burnham
I’m Mohammad Zahid Hussain, a Content Writer, Spoken English, IELTS and PTE Trainer. I’m also a Professional English-Hindi and Hindi-English Translator, Editor and Proofreader. I’m a graduate from Jamia Millia Islamia University, and I’m here to share my articles on a wide range of topics to help you enhance your insights into various things to provide you with factual information and creative analysis.
