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IELTS Writing Task 1
May 4
2016
T ổng hợp bài giảng IELTS Writing Task 1 c ủa thày Dominic Cole t ừ Facebook page Tôi được 9 điểm Vi ế ế t IELTS
IELTS Kungfu
Contents Bạn cần làm gì với IELTS Writing Task 1 | Understand what what you need to do in t ask 1 ...................................... 3 T ổng quan Task 1 .............................................................................................................................................................. .............................................................................................................................................................. 4
The chart types .................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................ ..................................................................................... ............... 4 Biểu đồ tĩnh và động về mặt thời gian ............................................................. ................................................................................................................ ................................................... 4 A video tutorial ................................................................... ......................................................................................................................................... ..................................................................................... ............... 4 Những ngôn ng ữ cần dùng. .................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................. 4 Line graph & Trend vocabulary ...................................................................... .................................................................................................................................... .............................................................. 6 Từ vựng chỉ xu ỉ xu hướng | Trend vocabulary . ............................................................................................................ ............................................................................................................ 6 Up verbs. .................................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Down verbs ................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................................. .......................... 9 Từ vựng chỉ xu ........................................................................................................ 9 ỉ xu hướng | Tính từ và Tr ạng từ ......................................................................................................... Other useful adjectives ................................................................. ...................................................................................................................................... ....................................................................... .. 11 Bar charts .......................................................... ................................................................................................................................ ............................................................................................................ ...................................... 12
Phân tích những thông tin chính và nổi bật | Analysing Analysing the key details .......................................................... 12 Tìm những điểm giống và khác | Ask yourself if the lines look similar, different or the same .................. 13 Bố cục bài làm và Nguyên t ắc: Chọn cách đơn giả n nhất | Choose the simplest option.......................... 13 Main details – NOT every detail ............................................................ ......................................................................................................................... ............................................................. 15 Some tips ................................................................. ....................................................................................................................................... .............................................................................................. ........................ 15 Hãy luôn bắt đầu với những gì nổi bật và dễ nhìn | Start with the obvious ................................................. 17 A sample report report ................................................................. ....................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................... ............. 20
Hướng dẫn lựa chọn thông tin đúng cho Bar chart | Choosing the right details in a bar chart (chi ti ế t) ........ 21 Cách bố cục bài .............................................................. .................................................................................................................................... .............................................................................................. ........................ 21 Kỹ năng paraphrase | The key skill – paragraphing ............................................................. ........................................................................................ ........................... 21 Key features là gì? | What are key f eatures? ...................................................................................................21 Pie charts – những cách để miêu t ả tỷ lệ | Pie charts – different ways to describe percentages ................... 24 Bảng biểu | Tables .................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................... ............. 33 Bức tranh tổng thể | The T he big picture/summary .......................................................... ................................................................................................ ...................................... 34 Cách nhóm thông tin | How to group information together ............................................................ ............................................................................ ................ 34 A sample task .................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................... ............. 37 Ví dụ về việc table có quá nhi ều số liệu | The problem – too much information ........................................ 37 Giải pháp | A solution – divide and conquer . .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... 37
Đâu là main features? features? | What are the main features? features? .................................................................................... 38 Bố cục bài làm | Organising your report .......................................................... ........................................................................................................... ................................................. 39 Ngôn ngữ so sánh | Comparisons in task 1 tables ........................................................... ................................................................................................. ...................................... 39 Process diagrams: t ổng quan. ............................................................................................................ .................................................................................................................................... ........................ 44 1
Contents Bạn cần làm gì với IELTS Writing Task 1 | Understand what what you need to do in t ask 1 ...................................... 3 T ổng quan Task 1 .............................................................................................................................................................. .............................................................................................................................................................. 4
The chart types .................................................................. ........................................................................................................................................ ..................................................................................... ............... 4 Biểu đồ tĩnh và động về mặt thời gian ............................................................. ................................................................................................................ ................................................... 4 A video tutorial ................................................................... ......................................................................................................................................... ..................................................................................... ............... 4 Những ngôn ng ữ cần dùng. .................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................. 4 Line graph & Trend vocabulary ...................................................................... .................................................................................................................................... .............................................................. 6 Từ vựng chỉ xu ỉ xu hướng | Trend vocabulary . ............................................................................................................ ............................................................................................................ 6 Up verbs. .................................................................................................................................................................. .................................................................................................................................................................. 8 Down verbs ................................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................................................. .......................... 9 Từ vựng chỉ xu ........................................................................................................ 9 ỉ xu hướng | Tính từ và Tr ạng từ ......................................................................................................... Other useful adjectives ................................................................. ...................................................................................................................................... ....................................................................... .. 11 Bar charts .......................................................... ................................................................................................................................ ............................................................................................................ ...................................... 12
Phân tích những thông tin chính và nổi bật | Analysing Analysing the key details .......................................................... 12 Tìm những điểm giống và khác | Ask yourself if the lines look similar, different or the same .................. 13 Bố cục bài làm và Nguyên t ắc: Chọn cách đơn giả n nhất | Choose the simplest option.......................... 13 Main details – NOT every detail ............................................................ ......................................................................................................................... ............................................................. 15 Some tips ................................................................. ....................................................................................................................................... .............................................................................................. ........................ 15 Hãy luôn bắt đầu với những gì nổi bật và dễ nhìn | Start with the obvious ................................................. 17 A sample report report ................................................................. ....................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................... ............. 20
Hướng dẫn lựa chọn thông tin đúng cho Bar chart | Choosing the right details in a bar chart (chi ti ế t) ........ 21 Cách bố cục bài .............................................................. .................................................................................................................................... .............................................................................................. ........................ 21 Kỹ năng paraphrase | The key skill – paragraphing ............................................................. ........................................................................................ ........................... 21 Key features là gì? | What are key f eatures? ...................................................................................................21 Pie charts – những cách để miêu t ả tỷ lệ | Pie charts – different ways to describe percentages ................... 24 Bảng biểu | Tables .................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................... ............. 33 Bức tranh tổng thể | The T he big picture/summary .......................................................... ................................................................................................ ...................................... 34 Cách nhóm thông tin | How to group information together ............................................................ ............................................................................ ................ 34 A sample task .................................................................... .......................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................... ............. 37 Ví dụ về việc table có quá nhi ều số liệu | The problem – too much information ........................................ 37 Giải pháp | A solution – divide and conquer . .................................................................................................... .................................................................................................... 37
Đâu là main features? features? | What are the main features? features? .................................................................................... 38 Bố cục bài làm | Organising your report .......................................................... ........................................................................................................... ................................................. 39 Ngôn ngữ so sánh | Comparisons in task 1 tables ........................................................... ................................................................................................. ...................................... 39 Process diagrams: t ổng quan. ............................................................................................................ .................................................................................................................................... ........................ 44 1
Diagram – hãy tìm điểm đầu và điể m cuối | Reading a process diagram – find the beginnings and ends ................................................................................................................................ .......................................................... ....................................................................................................................... ................................................. 44
Hiểu các bước trong quy trình | Understand the different stages of the process ....................................... 45
Hướng dẫn bố cục bài | Find a way of organising your description ........................................................... ............................................................. .. 45 Mở bài và kết luận | The introduction and conclusion ......................................................... .................................................................................... ........................... 45 Ngôn ngữ miêu tả | The language of the description .......................................................... ..................................................................................... ........................... 45 Bài mẫu và phân tích chi tiết | Sample description with detailed notes ....................................................... 46 Diagrams: Ngôn ngữ chỉ quy trình | The language of process diagrams ........................................................ ........................................................................ ................ 48
Diagrams: dạng bài miêu t ả quy trình tự nhiên | Describing a natural process in task 1 writing ..................... 50
IELTS Writing Task 1: Hướng dẫn luyện tập hàng ngày ............................................................ ....................................................................................... ........................... 54 Tài nguyên Task 1 – The Economist ................................................................................................................. ................................................................................................................ 54 Task 1: Lỗi kết hợp từ............................................................... ..................................................................................................................................... ................................................................................... ............. 55 Bài m ẫu Task 1 .......................................................................................................................... ................................................................................................................................................................ ...................................... 58 The Olympics medal table.................................................................... ......................................................................................................................................... ....................................................................... .. 58 Two pie charts and a line graph – farming in the UK ............................................................ .................................................................................................. ...................................... 62
Bao nhiêu paragraphs là đủ? | How many paragraphs? – Normally two..................................................................... ....................................................................... .. 63 Ngôn ngữ So sánh trong Task 1. ............................................................................................................................... ............................................................................................................................... 67 Amounts and numbers numbers ................................................................. ...................................................................................................................................... ....................................................................... .. 67 Differences .............................................................. .................................................................................................................................... .............................................................................................. ........................ 68 Similarities ............................................................... ..................................................................................................................................... .............................................................................................. ........................ 68 Sử dụng Thời trong Task 1. ........................................................................................................................................ ........................................................................................................................................ 70 Task 1: Hướng dẫn viết Kết luận ................................................................... ............................................................................................................................... ............................................................74
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Bạn cần làm gì với IELTS Writing Task 1 | Understand what you need to do in task 1 The place to start is to know what the examiner wants you to do. The instructions are t he same each time. Bài giảng video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBAxFDJTlM4
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Tổng quan Task 1 This is the first in a series of postings about how to approach academic task 1 in the writing paper. The starting point is to be aware of the different types of charts and graphs you may see. The key point is that each chart and graph will require a different form of language.
The chart types There are 4 different chart type you may see in the exam: 1. the bar chart/line graph 2. the pie chart 3. the table 4. the process/diagram
Biểu đồ tĩnh và động về mặt thời gian You should note that there are 2 major types of chart and graph: the static chart and the dynamic chart. The static chart shows only one period of time or has no time element. In contrast, the dynamic chart shows two or more periods of time or a change over a period of time. It is essential to note this as static charts and dynamic charts require different language. You cannot
use the famous “trend language” in static charts where there is no change in time. Many candidates focus exclusively on this language. That is a big mistake.
A video tutorial In this video, I talk through the different chart types and describe some of the typical problems they present. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELmgCcbB2uA
Những ngôn ngữ cần dùng What language do you need for academic task 1? It will depend on the chart/graph you see. These are the main possibilities: topic specific language: if the graph is about leisure activities, you will need leisure activity language; if it is about employment, you will need employment language, etc. You should note that to get a reasonable score, you will need to vary the language in the question and the chart: it is not sufficient to copy that language. comparison language: typically, you will need to compare and contrast in tables, charts and graphs. You will need this language whether the chart/graph is static or has a time element. To get a good score, you will need more than one comparison structure: it is not sufficient to repeat the same comparing structure every time. 4
trend/change language: this language is only appropriate in charts/graphs where there is a change of time. If there is no time element, or if t here is only one period of time then you do not need this language. process language: if you see a diagram or process, then you will need the language to describe processes (first, then, next etc)
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Line graph & Trend vocabulary Advice on how to write an IELTS task 1 report from a graph
Từ vựng chỉ xu hướng | Trend vocabulary This post looks at some vocabulary for IELTS writing task 1 when you need to describe a graph or chart that has a time element. I begin by looking at some of the most common vocabulary you need. Then I give you some variations and talk about some grammar.
The most basic trend vocabulary – a few variations Let’s look at this graph and see what words we need to describe it. Put simply we need language that describes
up (2009 to 2010),
down (2008 to 2009),
up and down (between 2006 and 2009)
no change (2006 and 2007)
the top (2010)
The trend vocabulary I am going to suggest may seem very basic. It does, however, allow you to say
the same thing in up to 6 different ways.That’s good. Tip: if you find yourself repeating a word, try changing the form of it f rom a verb to a noun You should also note that, even with this basic language, there are a variety of grammar problems that
cause many candidates problems. That’s bad.
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Up variations
Down variations
Up and down
Sometimes you need to describe a graph that goes up and then down. Here we have fewer options.
No change
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To p
Từ vựng chỉ xu hướng | Giới từ
1 – by and to Prepositions are horrid in English. Have another look at the graph:
Note how these two sentences mean exactly the same: The rate of unemployment rose to 12% in 2010. The rate of unemployment rose by 5% in 2010.
2 – in and of This one is harder. We use “in” to describe changes in things and “of” to describe changes in number or amount. For example, There was a rise in the rate of unemployment There was a rise of 5% i n the rate of unemployment.
Từ vựng chỉ xu hướng | Động từ These verbs are alternatives to the basic rise and fall vocabulary. One benefit of using them is that sometimes they help you avoid repeating too many numbers. If you have a strong verb, you don’t always have to give the exact figure.
Up verbs
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Notes:
“Soar “and “rocket” are both very strong words that describe large rises. “Rocket” is more sudden. You probably do not need to qualify these verbs with adverbs.
“Leap” shows a large and sudden rise. Again, you probably do not need t o qualify it with an adverb. “Climb” is a relatively neutral verb that can be used with the adverbs below.
Down verbs
Notes:
“Plummet” is the strongest word here. It means to fall very quickly and a long way. “Drop” and “drop” are normally used for fairly small decreases “Slip back” is used for falls that come after rises “Drop” and “Dip” are also frequently used as nouns: eg “a slight dip” “a sudden drop” Từ vựng chỉ xu hướng | Tính từ và Tr ạng từ Bài tập thực hành với tính từ và tr ạng từ chỉ xu hướng http://www.dcielts.com/task-1-2/trend-vocabulary-ielts/
This is a selection of some of the most common adjectives and adverbs used for trend language. Please be careful. This is an area where it is possible to make low-level mistakes. Make sure that you use adjectives with nouns and adverbs with verbs:
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a significant rise – correct (adjective/noun)
rose significantly – correct (adverb/verb)
a significantly rise – wrong wrong wrong Please also note the spelling of the adverbs. There is a particular problem with the word “dramatically:
dramatically – correct
dramaticly – wrong
dramaticaly – wrong
Adjectives of degree
notes
“sudden” and “sharp” can be used of relatively minor changes that happen quickly “spectacular” and “dramatic” are very strong words only to used to big, big, big changes
Steady adjectives
Small adjectives
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notes
“marginal” is a particularly useful word for describing very small changes
Other useful adjectives These adjectives can be used to describes more general trends
notes
“overall” can be used to describe changes in trend over the whole period: very useful in introductions and conclusions
“upward” and “downward” are adjectives: the adverbs are “upwards” and “downwards”
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IELTS task 1 – Bar charts Advice on how to write an IELTS task 1 report from a bar chart
Identifying patterns in bar charts This lesson looks in detail at one way to organise your answer when describing a chart or graph in part 1. The suggestion is that you should try and look for patterns in the data. When you write, you report those patterns and note any exceptions to them. This works on several levels:
your writing becomes more coherent – linking ideas together
you are more likely to identify the key points
the report becomes easier to write To help you do this, you will find a bar chart with a sample answer below. I also show you one way how to identify patterns in bar charts.
Sample task The bar chart below show s the different types of accom mo dation chosen by the British when they went on holiday in 2012. Summ arise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make com pariso ns w here relevant
Phân tích những thông tin chính và nổi bật | Analysing the key details
Don’t look at the whole chart, look at the x axis and the y axis separately
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The first step is to analyse the chart – carefully. Don’t rush this stage. One way to do this is by asking yourself some simple questions. Ask yourself which is the biggest/longest? Are there any patterns? As you do this I suggest that you
don’t worry about names of countries and types of accommodation. Think colours and lengths. Look don’t read. look at each element one by one. It can be very confusing of you look at the chart as a whole. look at the extremes (the biggest/the smallest) fi rst – they are almost always important look for patterns – these are also important. Note that a pattern can have exceptions. note exceptions – these are also details you want to include.
Tìm những điểm giống và khác | Ask yourself if the lines look similar, different or the same Try this brief quiz to analyse the y axis. As you go through the test, you should notice how I ask simple questions. What is the biggest? Are they t he same, different or similar? Does any one bar look different from the rest? Remember that you are looking for patterns. My conclusion from this is that we must state:
hotels were the most common form of accommodation at over 50%
self-catering was second most popular (just below 30%) but there is one major exception
caravan and camping holidays were typically least popular (around 10%) but again there was an exception
England, Scotland and Wales follow a broadly similar pattern (Scotland is only slightly different)
the popularity of caravanning in Northern Ireland needs to be highlighted
Bố cục bài làm và Nguyên tắc: Chọn cách đơn giản nhất | Organising the report – choose the simplest option There is always more than one way to organise a report. In the exam you are under time pressure, so it makes sense to choose the simplest option. Here t he 2 main choices you have are:
go through each type of accommodation (the y axis option)
go through the countries (the x axis option) My choice would be to use the countries. There are only 4 of them and 3 of those are very similar and it seems natural and easy to group England, Scotland and Wales together. Northern Ireland is the odd one out.
A sample answer This answer is not perfect. It is not meant to be. Rather you should note how it is logically organised, grouping similar information together . There is one paragraph for England, Scotland 13
and Wales showing the main pattern. I start by noting the most evident feature of the chart . I also use England as a model and then compare the situation in Wales and Scotland. Then there is a separate paragraph for Northern Ireland, highlighting the key exception . This bar chart shows illustrates the holiday accommodation chosen by people in the United Kingdom in 2010. Generally, it is possible to say that the English, Scottish, Northern and Welsh made very similar choices and that hotels were much the most popular form of accommodation. In all four countries approximately half the people chose to stay in hotels . This figure was highest in England at around 55%, almost twice the number of people who cooked for themselves (27% of the sample) and far greater than the number who stayed in campsites (12%) and finally caravans (6%) . A similar pattern was repeated for the Scots and the Welsh. In each case, around 50% of holidaymakers went to hotels with around 30% in self-catering apartments. The one difference being that caravan holidays at 12% were twice as popular as camping holidays in Scotland, while the opposite pattern could be seen in Wales. The one country that shows a different pattern is Northern Ireland. It is notable how there just over 30% of the population chose caravan holidays in preference to self-catering accommodation and camping (both around 12%).
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Bar chart: tổng quan In academic task 1 it is important to learn how to read a chart and a graph. This is because the instructions always tell you to summarise and select and report on the main features of the graphic. Many candidates make the mistake here of including as much detail as possible in their report. This brief tutorial gives you a sample task 1 report and some tips on how to select the main features of a bar chart.
Main details – NOT every detail The task in academic part 1 almost always contains these words: Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
This means that you cannot/should not try to report all the detail in the visual. If you do, it will be hard to write well in 150 words and more importantly you may be penalised on task response.
Some tips Here are some general tips to help you select the main features on bar charts in brief.
1. look at the top 2. look at the bottom 3. can you see an average? 4. are there any exceptions?
An exercise Look at this bar chart and see what main features you would select to report. There are at least 21 different features on the chart and you cannot report them all! Then watch the video below to see if you agree with me. My sample answer is further down the page. Bài giảng video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhOd7FOhULA A sample essay
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This bar chart compares how long people can expect to live in seven different countries. We can see that in each of the seven countries people have a life expectancy of between63 years and 83 years. People will live longest in Canada at 83 years and the UnitedStates (81 years), while Bangladesh has the lowest life expectancy at just 63 years. Of theother countries, Turkey, Vietnam, Iran and India all have a similar level close to theaverage of 73 years. We should also note that women are expected to live longer than men in all thesecountries. On average, females will live approximately 4 years longer than men, althoughthere are differences here. The greatest difference is in the United States (about 5 years),while in Iran females are expected to live only 2 years longer than men. However, themajor exception is Bangladesh where both genders have the same life expectancy. Thus, we can see there are comparisons to be made in life expectancy both ingeographical location and gender.
Hướng dẫn lựa chọn thông tin bar chart | Choosing the right details in a bar chart This lesson is designed to help you think about how part 1 IELTS writing works. The idea is that many of the problems with task 1 writing are caused by the thinking part – analysing the data. That matters because the goal in task 1 is not just to describe the information in the chart, but to summarise it 16
by selecting the key data. To do this, you need to spend time thinking – it is not simply a vocabulary exercise.
I’d add that time spent thinking is rarely wasted. If you spend 3/4 minutes thinking of what details to include, the report actually becomes easier to write. All the “ideas” are there (good for your Task Response score) and it becomes much easier to organise the report (good for your Coherence and Cohesion score).
Thực hành This is a simple bar chart similar to one you might find in task 1. Your task is to analyse and decide what information you would choose to include in your writing. 1. Look at the chart and think for 3/4 minutes 2. Make notes of what details you would include 3. Try the test – how many of the details I suggest did you find? Have problems? Disagree with me? Read on below.
Hãy luôn bắt đầu với những gì nổi bật và dễ nhìn | Start with the obvious Sometimes it is easy to forget to include a detail because it looks too simple. Don’t do that. Simple matters. If you don’t include these simple details, your writing will lack clarity. The tip here is to look at the simple (that word again) things like colours and line lengths – let the visual help you. Do that and you get something like this: 1. there are 6 countries 2. some bars are longer than others – there are significant differences in the proportion of proficient second language speakers among the different countries 3. there are two colours of bars – males and females are included in the study 4. the green lines are typically longer – generally more females than males are proficient in a second language
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Bố cục bài theo key info | Look at the key – use it to organise your answer The key can also help you. Its role is to show what the different lines mean. One t hing that you can do is to use it to organise your answer: in this case, that means making sure you write about:
males
females
a comparison of males and females
I’ve helped you here by re organising the data. This is what you should see and need to include: 1. India is much the largest (around 55%) 2. China is the smallest (about a third of India) (around 17%) 3. Romania, Vietnam, Russia and Thailand are in that order and approximately similar (between 32 and 42%)
Likewise with females, it’s a good idea to look at the extremes and this is what you get: 1. India and Romania are the largest (around 65% and 65% respectively) 2. Thailand is the smallest (about 27%) 3. There are fairly significant differences between Vietnam, Russia and China
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Comparisons are almost always important. Here you should see: 1. Typically, more females are proficient than males 2. Thailand is the exception because there the pattern is reversed (the lines cross) 3. Romanian females appear to be especially good at languages
Look at the axes Another detail you need to include is that the percentage of second language learners varies considerably from country to country. You can see this by sim ply looking at the length of the lines on
the “y” (vertical) axis. To help you see this, I have re -organised the data in a pie chart:
Key information to include from this is that overall: 1. China has significantly the lowest proportion of second language speakers 2. India is much the largest 3. there are no major differences between Romania, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam
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A sample report Take a look at this sample report and see how I have included the relevant details. This bar chart shows how second language proficiency varies between males and females in 6 different countries. It is immediately apparent that while there is significant regional variation in second language ability, typically a higher percentage of females than males speak a second language well. If we look at males we can see that India has much the greatest proportion of proficient second language speakers at around 55% and China has the least at fewer than 18%. There is only a 10% difference in competency ranging from around 40% to around 30% between Romania, Vietnam, Russia and Thailand in second to fourth places respectively. There are,however, notably more female than male second language speakers in every country with the exception of Thailand. So, India once again leads the way with around 65% , closely followed by Romania and then Vietnam and Russia at 56 and 42% in turn. The two countries with fewest proficient second language speakers are China and Thailand at around 30%. The final point to note is that of the countries in the report, India would appear to have the highest overall proportion of proficient second language speakers and China the least. Notes
The “obvious” details form the summary statement/introduction. The main content paragraph looks first at m ales and then makes a contrast with females. D oing it this
way means you don’t need to repeat a lot of detail. For both males and females, the first figure included is the highest figure and, typically, the numbers run logically from high to low. Download The bar chart below shows the percentage of male and female students in a variety of countries worldwide who are proficient in a foreign language. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
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Hướng dẫn lựa chọn thông tin đúng cho Bar chart | Choosing the right details in a bar chart (chi tiết) Cách bố cục bài | A bar chart – organising your answer Much of the difficulty in academic IELTS part 1 is knowing how to organise your answer. This post shows you one way to do this when the diagram is a bar chart. I talk about paragraphs, but what you really need to understand is that this is a visual task. You need to be write so that someone else can
“see” the diagram. This post shows you one to organise your task 1 with a step-by-step gu ide and has the added bonus of an interactive quiz on comparison language.
Kỹ năng paraphrase | The key skill – paragraphing The key skill is to make sure that you write in organised paragraphs – just as you would in an essay. This is so important because it will not just improve your coherence and cohesion band scores, but it will also make the report easier to write. To do this, we need to identify key features that will make the topics of the paragraphs. When we have done that, we can look for the details that explain those features.
Key features là gì? | What are key features? Normally, they are obvious. Never ignore the obvious. Look at the bar chart below and what do you see?
What you should see is this: 1. 2 sets of lines (one red and one blue) 2. some lines are longer than others Those are your key features that you must highlight in your report as paragraph topics. Everything else is detail.
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Tip: Think visually. Look for the obvious and ignore any writing when you first look at a chart. Close your eyes. What do you remember? It’s easy to be confused by detail. What are supporting details?
Let’s now look at the complete chart.
Key features
We now see what the 2 key features that need to be reported are. Remember these will be the topics of our 2 content paragraphs : 1. the distinction between men and women (the blue lines and the red lines) 2. how certain purposes of travel are more common than others (how long the lines are) S u p p o r t i n g d e t a il : m e n a n d w o m e n
Looking at the blue and red lines this is what I see and needs to be included: 1. little or no difference in “walking” “holidays” and “personal business” 2. more men in “education”, “entertainment” and “commuting” 3. more women in “school run”, “visiting friends” and “shopping” 4. many more women in “school run” (5% difference) 5. many more men in “commuting” (8% difference) Suppo rting detail: purposes
This is fairly straightforward as all you need to do is arrange the different categories into an order showing the most common and least common purposes. 1. commuting and shopping much the most common (around 20% average) 2. visiting friends and school run both around 15% average 22
3. personal business just under 10% average 4. sport/entertainment around 7% average just more than education at 6% 5. least common is walking and holidays at around 3% each Note the % figures here are averages of the male/female numbers. Tip: when you have many different categories, it is a good idea to group them together under a f ew headings
A possible answer There are, of course, many possible answers to this task. Here is one solution. This bar chart shows the different reasons for making journeys in the UK in 2006 and how males and females differed in this. It is immediately apparent that the most common purposes for travelling were commuting and shopping, both being around 20 per cent of trips. The next most common reasons were visiting friends and doing the school run at 15%, closely follo wed by personal business at around 10%. Travelling for sport and entertainment (7%) was only just more common than journeys for educational purposes (6%). Finally, the fewest number of trips were travelling for holidays and walking, both of which accounted for around 3 per cent of all journeys. Typically, there were few major differences between males and females. I n holidays, personal business and walking both sexes took approximately the same amount of journeys, while slightly more men travelled for educational purposes and more women visited friends. Notably, almost twice as many men as women travelled for entertainment reasons and, likewise, around 7% more men commuted to work. The two areas in which women travelled significantly more than men were shopping and the school run.
Test your comparison vocabulary/grammar In this form of writing comparisons are crucial. Indeed, they are perhaps the most important grammar item in academic task 1. So why not test yourself with this exercise? See if you can re-use the comparison language from my example. comparison quiz Tip: try to vary the language you use to make comparisons. One way to do this is use adverbs such as
“significantly”
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Pie charts & Ngôn ngữ miêu tả tỷ lệ | Pie charts & Descriptions of Percentages Advice on how to write an academic task 1 report from a pie chart
Bài giảng videos | A video lesson on pie charts This post contains a long training video on how to analyse a pie chart for IELTS writing part 1. In it , I look at and suggest how to approach a part 1 question. In brief, my tips are: 1. See the big picture: do not get lost in the detail – it is a summarising task 2. Learn to identify the correct details to support the main points 3. Think about the correct language to use by reading the question carefully – often this language is explaining and comparing language 4. Decide how to organise the information For an explanation of how to use these tips in practice, here is my video lesson: http://www.dcielts.com/ielts-writing/academic-task-1-pie-charts/
Pie charts – những cách để miêu tả tỷ lệ | Pie charts – different ways to describe percentages One task that seems to concern IELTS candidates is the pie chart. I think I understand why and I hope I have a solution. In this post I talk you through a major difficulty and give you some language to deal
with it. There’s also an exercise at the end to test yo u out.
Có thể bạn sẽ không có gì nhiều để viết | The difficulty – I have nothing to say Typically, the problem is that candidates find they have very little to say about a pie chart in comparison with a bar chart. Really this is just a problem of language. Very often, candidates spend a long time learning about the language of trends when the y prepare for task 1 and that language very rarely applies to a pie chart. You need some different language.
Lối thoát: dù pie charts có thế nào thì ngôn ngữ ứng dụng cũng vẫn không thay đổi The key point is that whatever the chart looks like the language you need is the same. Take a look at these 3 pie charts and ask yourself what language you need.
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A ch art with percentages
A chart without any numb ers
A chart with numbers
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The answer should be obvious. When you look at all three pie charts, you should see that you need
exactly the same language:it’s the language of percentages. By definition the whole pie is 100% and each share of that pie is also a percentage. It should make little or no difference how the pie chart is labelled. Tip: if you see a pie chart without % figures written in, don’t panic. Consider what the % must be.
Hướng dẫn miêu tả tỷ lệ | Different ways to describe percentages Another possible problem is that you find yourself repeating the word “percentage”. Here are some helpful variations for you. There are variations possible in almost every case: using a fraction or a synonym such as proportion.
Notes 1. “percentage” is more correct than “percent” (“per cent” is the correct spelling, though no one I know uses it!) 2. “amount” is correctly used only with uncountable nouns: the variation for countables in “number”
Thực hành This is an area that needs some practice to get right. So I suggest you make a start by having a go at these two quizzes: using percentages: a quick quiz checking you can know this language of percentages. It should be
quite easy, so I’ve made it more challenging by making it timed!
làm bài tập ở đây
http://www.dcielts.net/exercises/task1/percentages1.htm write a task 1: can you use the language for yourself by doing a practice task 1 from the pie chart above. Try and write a good paragraph of between 60 – 75 words.
làm bài tập ở đây
http://www.dcielts.net/exercises/task1/pie2.htm 26
Pie chart: Hướng dẫn từng bước thực hiện | A model pie chart report – step by step This lesson gives you a step-by-step approach to dealing with pie charts in task 1. I talk you through how to identify the main points, select the supporting details and then structure your report. I then show you two model answers: one with standard vocabulary and then a much more advanced version with more vocabulary and grammar you can borrow.
Đề bài The following pie charts show the results of a survey into the most popular leisure activities in the United States of America in 1999 and 2009. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and m ake comparisons where relevant.
Bước 1: hãy nhìn tổng thể bức tranh | Step 1: seeing the big picture The first step is to identify the main points of the two charts. This is not just an important part of the task and your band score, it will also help you write your description. The main points are normally obvious. Sometimes they are so obvious that candidates ignore them. Look at these questions: 1. How many activities are there in each chart? – Just count 2. Are the activities the same in each chart? – Read the key 27
3. Are there any changes in popularity between the two years? – Look at the colours You should get these answers: 1. There are 8 activities for each year 2. 7 of 8 activities are the same 3. There are a number of differences in popularity between the two years. All you need to do now is put that into English and you have the main points of the report. Adding in a short description of the task we have: These two pie charts show the changes in popularity of different leisure activities in the United S tates of America between 1999 and 2009. We can see that the most popular leisure activities were almost the same in both periods, but there were a number of differences in popularity between the various activities.
Bước 2: lựa chọn thông tin | Step 2: choose the details to include There are 16 different figures you can include. This is too many. The task is to select and report the most important details. This will include naming all the activities, but not all the numbers. To do this, try looking for: 1. the biggest number 2. the smallest number These are generally important details to include. You should also consider what changes beween the two charts, not least because the task asks you to make comparisons. So, ask yourself: 1. what’s gone up 2. what’s gone down 3. what hasn’t changed 4. what’s new Putting this together, we need these details: 1. walking is most popular in both periods 2. yoga disappears and weightlifting is new 3. swimming doubles 4. aerobics, jogging and cycling all fall 5. soccer and camping don’t change much
Bước 3: bố cục bài làm | Step 3: organise your report This will vary from task to task, but typically you will be looking at two content paragraphs. As you write your paragraphs, you want to think of three key ideas:
highlight the main points – they come first
group similar ideas together
find a logical structure to present the points 28
In this case, I would go with this structure: Paragraph 1 walking is much the biggest slice of the pie in both years weightlifting is new and yoga has gone It is clear that walking was the most popular activity in both 1999 and 2009 with around 30% of Americans saying that they preferred it. Also, yoga was no longer among the preferred activities in 2009, but weightlifting was chosen by 10% of people. Paragraph 2 refer to the other activities in order of popularity in 2009 – soccer and swimming first, jogging and aerobics last note the biggest changes – cycling, jogging and aerobics all big fallers, swimming the big riser. The second most popular activity was soccer at j ust under 20% in both years, a figure that was matched by swimming in 2009, having almost doubled in popularity over the previous decade. Most of the other activities became less popular over the same period of time, with cycling, jogging and aerobics all falling by at least a half to under 10%. The one exception to this trend was camping which stayed almost unchanged at around 9%.
Bước 4: lựa chọn từ vựng | Step 4: get the vocabulary right This is the big one and will take time to learn. To help you on your way, I show you two model answers
with extensive vocabulary notes. My suggestion is start with the f irst one. Don’t be worries that it looks too simple. it isn’t. It is in fact extremely good – band score 9. The when you have that right, take a look at the second version which has some more advanced vocabulary.
Bài mẫu This is the final report These two pie charts show the changes in popularity of different leisure activities in the United States of America between 1999 and 2009. We can see that the most popular leisure activities were almost the same in both periods, but there were a number of differences in popularity between the various activities. It is clear that walking was the most popular activity in both 1999 and 2009, with around 30% of Americans saying that they preferred it. Also, yoga was no longer among the preferred activities in 2009, but weightlifting was chosen by 10% of people. The second most popular activity was soccer at just under 20% in both years, a figure that was matched by swimming in 2009, having almost doubled in popularity over the previous decade. Most of the other activities became less popular over the same period of time, with cycling, jogging and 29
aerobics all falling by at least a half to under 10%. The one exception to this trend was camping which stayed almost unchanged at around 9%.
My band score 10 answer The above report is exceptionally good. It covers all the right details (Task response), has a good range of grammar with relative clauses (Range and accuracy of grammar), is very coherent (well organised and linked) and has some range of vocabulary, even if some words are repeated (Lexical resource). This answer can help you by extending the range of vocabulary you use for:
general words
dealing with numbers
linking
These two charts illustrate how the preferred leisure activities of Americans changed between 1999 and 2009.Generally speaking, while the list of activities remained almost identical over the decade, there were a number of changes in their relative popularity. It is immediately evident that walking was by some distance the most popular pastime in both years,accounting for just under a third of the preferences expressed. Of equal note is that by 2009, yoga had disappeared from the list of preferred activities and had been replaced by weightlifting, which was chosen by one in ten Americans. Among the less popular activities, the most notable development was that the proportion of people who went swimming doubled, making it equal second in popularity with soccer at 18%. In stark contrast, around as half as many Americans went cycling in 2009 as compared to ten years earlier, with the result that it became less popular than camping, at 7% and 9% respectively. Likewise, the number of people who went jogging and did aerobics also dropped significantly, with less than 5% of respondents to the survey choosing them.
Language notes These two charts illustrate how the preferred leisure activities of Americans changed between 1999 and 2009.Generally speaking , while the list of activities remained almost identical over the decade, there were a number of changes in their relative popularity. It is immediately evident that walking was by some distance the most popular pastime in both years,accounting for just under a third of the preferences expressed. Of equal note is that by 2009, yoga had disappeared from the list of preferred activities and had been replaced by weightlifting, which was chosen by one in ten Americans. Among the less popular activities, the most notable development was that the proportion of people who went swimming doubled, making it equal second in popularity with soccer at 18%. In stark contrast , around as half as many Americans went cycling in 2009 as compared to ten years 30
earlier, with the result that it became less popular than camping, at 7% and 9% respectively. Likewise, the number of people who went jogging and did aerobics also dropped significantly , with less than 5% of respondents to the survey choosing them. General v ocabulary
“illustrate“: a useful alternative to the standard “show ” “remained almost identical “: a variation of “stayed the same” “The most notable development “: “development” is a useful alternative to “change” and “notable” works in the same way as “significant”. “respondents to the survey “: one word you may find yourself repeating a lot is “People”. One way to avoid this is to use “Americans”. This is a more ad vanced version – you respond to a survey and the people to respond to a survey are “respondents”. L i n k i n g p h r a s es
“while“: a useful and slightly more advanced variation of “but” “Generally speaking ,”: an alternative to “in general”. It is a good habit to use a phrase like this in your summary paragraph. Note the comma.
“It is immediately evident that “: a variation of the standard “It is clear that”. Again, it is a good habit to use a phrase like this when you are writing about the main points of the chart/graph.
“Of equal note“: a useful linking phrase when you are joining two important main points. “ Among the less popular activities “: this is good writing as it explains to the reader that this paragraph is about a different topic.This is a good structure to borrow.
“In stark contrast “: this is a set phrase when you have a large contrast. Don’t overuse it, it only works for big differences.
“Likewise“: another very useful linking phrase. You use it between two sentences which are about similar ideas. Note the comma. Dealing with num bers
“accounting for just under a third “: you could just say “around 30%”, but this way you use more language. “Accounting/accounted for” is a very useful phrase when dealing with numbers. Another example would be: “Children under 14 account for almost a quarter of people who play golf regularly”. “by some distance the most “: when you make a comparison, it is a good idea to try and qualify it in some way. if you say it is the biggest, ask yourself the question “By how much?”. Anoth er alternative her would be “significantly the most”. “one in ten Americans “: “one in ten” is a very useful variation when you are talking about percentages. “proportion“: another key word for task 1 – an excellent variation for percentage. “dropped significantly “: you should have a number of variations for saying “rise” and “fall”. “Drop” is quite a neutral word so you can qualify with adverbs like “significantly” Gramm ar notes
“had disappeared “: think about tenses if you are given two charts relat ing to different periods in the past. Can you use a past perfect?
“which was chosen by “: two points to consider here. The relative “which”is a key piece of grammar and the passive, both of which are key pieces of grammar for this task. 31
“with the result that “: note the structure here. The fall in popularity means that it has become less popular. This is an idea you can borrow.
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Bảng biểu | Tables Advice on how to write an academic task 1 report from a table
Table: cách bố cục bài | Using paragraphs to organise your answer in a task 1 table In this lesson I help you with a complex table in IELTS task 1. The idea I want to sell you is that it helps to spend time thinking about patterns in the table and how you will organise your answer. Task 1 is very largely an organisational task and to do it well, you need to learn how to organise your answer in paragraphs. The main ideas are: find patterns in the data organise the patterns write in paragraphs
The table This is a complex table. There are 21 different pieces of data for you think about and organise. One thing is sure is that you cannot include all the data – you need to summarise it and select the main features (see video here). I suggest you think about the questions:
What is the big picture? How can I summarise the table in a sentence or so? – This gives you your summary statement.
How can you group information together? – This will show you your paragraphs. The percentage of workers in agriculture, manufacturing and services in 7 European countries in 2014
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Bức tranh tổng thể | The big picture/summary Sometimes this is the hard one to see. In this case, I hope it’s easy. The big picture is that the highest proportion of people works in services in every country and the lowest in agriculture (with one exception).
This is your summary statement. I’d put this right at the start of your report as it will help the reader/examiner understand what you are writing.
Cách nhóm thông tin | How to group information together There are two steps here: 1. find patterns in the information 2. organise those patterns into paragraphs There are almost always different ways to do this – as you should see from my examples below. You just need to make sure that your groupings are logical.
An “X axis” approach A simple way to group the information is just to write about agriculture, then manufacturing and then services. The benefit of this approach is that it is clear. If you do this though you want to be smart about it. It is not enough just to list all the information. You want to analyse/process those figures and find some patterns to help you write and avoid repetition.
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A top tip is to look at the variation from the biggest to the smallest – this is almost always key data. So agriculture = 1% (almost nothing) to 30% = huge variation manufacturing = 15% to around 40% = significant/doubling services = 44% to 84% = almost same range as manufacturing = doubling Note how the organisation in this variation. It is super clear no? First I do one , t hen the other, then the other. But the note too now I link the sentences together and compare between the different sectors. This is a case where repeating language is a good thing! The figures for agriculture varied significantly . In Romania and Ukraine around 30% and 10% of the respective workforces worked in agriculture, while in all the other countries except this figure was 3.5% or lower. There was less marked variation in the manufacturing sector with the percentages ranging from a high of 37.4% in the Czech Republic down to around 15% in the UK and Greece. There was approximately the same degree of variation in the service sector. The UK, Greece, France and Germany all had around three quarters of the workforce employed in the service industry. By contrast, only 60% of Czech workers and fewer than 45% of Romanian workers were employed in services.
A Y axis approach
An alternative is to look at the countries on the y axis and see if you can group them together in some way. This may be slightly harder to do but it can still work. What I see is: UK/Greece/France and possibly Germany all follow the same pattern – very low agriculture and very high services Czech/Romania/Ukraine – all lower in services – Romania very high agriculture and Czech manufacturing The organisation may be less clear this time but I hope you see that I am still grouping information. This time I am taking a country by country approach and picking out the important numbers. The employment statistics for these sectors in UK, France, Greece and Germany followed a very similar pattern with the figures for agriculture varying between 1.3 and 3.5 %, manufacturing 5.2 and 24.6%, and the services 73.8 and 83.5%. The Czech Republic, Ukraine and Romania all differed somewhat. These countries all had a lower percentage of people working in the service sector with only 43.9 % in Romania and 58.8 and 60% in Ukraine and Czech republic respectively. In Romania the agricultural sector accounted for around a quarter of the workforce and this figure very slightly exceeded the percentage of Romanians employed in manufacturing. Ukraine too had a greater proportion of workers in agriculture, but this was less than 35
half that amount at around 12%. While in the Czech the Czech Republic there there was nearly 40% of the workforce worked in manufacturing and that is around 10% more than in any other country,
The complete answers Here are the two complete answers. Which is better? I’m not sure, but they both work. There is almost always more than one logical approach. Version 1 This table shows the percentage of the population working in the agricultural, manufacturing and service sectors in 7 European countries in 2014. It is immediately clear that in each case the highest proportion of people was employed employed in the service service sector and that, with one exception, the lowest was employed in agriculture. The figures for agriculture varied significantly. In Romania and Ukraine around 30% and 10% of the respective workforces worked in agriculture, while in all the other countries except this figure was 3.5% or lower. There was less marked variation in the manufacturing sector with the percentages ranging from a high of 37.4% in the Czech Republic down to around 15% in the UK and Greece. There was approximately the same degree of variation in the service sector. The UK, Greece, France and Germany all had around three quarters of the workforce employed in the service industry. By contrast, only 60% of Czech workers and fewer than 45% of Romanian workers were employed in services. It is notable how the UK, France, Germany and Greece all had a very low proportion of people employed in agriculture and a very high proportion in services. I n contrast, the Czech Republic, Ukraine and Romania all had a much more significant percentage of workers either in manufacturing or agriculture. Version 2 This table shows the percentage of the population working in the agricultural, manufacturing and service sectors in 7 European countries in 2014. It is immediately clear that in each case the service sector employed the highest proportion of people and that, with one exception, agriculture employed the lowest. The employment statistics for these sectors in UK, France, Greece and Germany followed a very similar pattern with the figures f igures for agriculture varying between 1.3 and 3.5 %, manufacturing manufacturing 5.2 and 24.6%, and the services 73.8 and 83.5%. The Czech Republic, Ukraine and Romania all differed somewhat. These countries all had a lower percentage of people people working in the service sector sector with only 43.9 % in Romania Romania and 58.8 and 60% 60% in Ukraine and Czech Republic respectively. In Romania the agricultural sector accounted for around a quarter of the workforce and this figure very slightly exceeded the percentage of Romanians employed in manufacturing. Ukraine too had a greater proportion of workers in agriculture, but this was less than 36
half that amount at around 12%. While in the Czech Republic nearly 40% of the workforce worked in manufacturing which was around 10% more than in any other country, Describing a table is almost certainly the most challenging IELTS writing task. In this post I look at what causes the difficulty and suggest a technique for dealing with it. You will find two exercises and a model report at the end of the post to help you write the report yourself.
A sample task Let’s look at this sample task and do a little analysis. The table table below show s the in w hich s ector of the economy different different age groups were employed. Summ arise the the information by selecting selecting and reporting the m ain feature features, s, making co mp arisons arisons wh ere relevant relevant
Ví dụ về việc table có quá nhiều số liệu | The problem – too much information There are 30 different pieces of data here. How on earth can you describe all of that? The solution is simple: don’t try to! Remember the task is to summarise and summarise and to select the main features of the table. table. This means leaving some items of information out.
Giải pháp | A solution – divide and conquer My solution is to divide and conquer by looking at the table in columns and rows. This way you can more easily identify the key details and comparisons. comparisons. The key is to understand that that you have two sets sets of data: 37
1. the data from the the rows rows (across) (across) 2. the data from the columns (down) Rather than try and understand the table as a whole all at once, look at each row in turn and each column in turn and note the m ain features.
Đâu là main features? | What are the main features? Typically, the main features are 1. high numbers 2. low numbers 3. the biggest contrasts 4. the closest similarities An example
Looking at this column, we see that we need to include 23 and 3 as the t he highest and lowest numbers
Now looking at the rows in turn we note the numbers for manufacturing m anufacturing are much higher than catering and agriculture.
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Then once you have gone through each row and column, you need to look for the obvious comparisons and contrasts.
Bố cục bài làm | Organising your report This is the simple bit. The logical thing is almost always to write one paragraph for the rows (here the sectors of employment) and one for the columns (here the age groups).
Thực hành | Some practice Confused? Well, it does take a little practice. Here is my solution. The first exercise takes you through the table asking you questions about the key details in the columns and rows. The next exercise gets you to write the report yourself based on a model I wrote. exercise 1 find the key details
làm
bài thực hành tại đây
http://www.dcielts.com/exercises/task1/table2.htm exercise 2 write the report
làm bài thực hành tại đ ây
http://www.dcielts.com/exercises/task1/table1.htm
Ngôn ngữ so sánh | Comparisons in task 1 tables This post shows you one simple way of varying your language of comparison in task 1 reports. This matters because in task 1 you very often need to make comparisons and it is no good if you use the same words and structures all the time as your grammar is marked not only for accuracy, but also for range. The approach I take here is to think about using different words and different word f orms in describing a table.
Thực hành Look at this table and decide what the major comparisons and contrasts are . These will be the main points that you need to make in your report. The tip is to divide and conquer by looking at columns and rows .
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Ask the right questions One tip is to ask yourself questions about what you see in the table. Try this simple quiz: Instructions: Click the answer button to see the correct answer. 1. How would I generally compare the two age groups? a. The younger boys played more sport b. There was no notable difference between the two groups c. The older boys played more sport
2. Were any sports different when thinking about the age groups? a. Swimming b. Cricket c. Football d. Basketball
3. Which sport was most popular in the younger age group? a. Basketball b. Football c. Cricket d. Rugby
4. Which sport was least popular in the younger age group? a. Swimming b. Football c. Cricket d. Rugby
5. Which sport was most popular in the older age group? a. Football b. Basketball c. Rugby d. Cricket
6. Which sport was least popular in the older age group? a. Cricket b. Swimming c. Rugby 40
7. How would I describe the popularity of the sports when comparing the two age groups? a. Similar b. Identical c. Different
My answer Looking at the columns and rows I see three major comparisons that must be included: 1. the younger boys played more sport (the columns) 2. some sports were more popular than others (the rows) 3. the same sports were equally popular in both age groups (the rows and the columns) Any answer that does not highlight these points would be marked down on task achievement, so it is worthwhile spending time on this analysis.
Đa dạng hóa ngôn ngữ so sánh | Vary your comparison words The next stage is to write the report. The trap here is to use the same language all the time, something
it is very easy for you to do if you are not careful. Don’t worry though, you don’t need lots of new words. You just need to use the words you already have, but more flexibly. The keys are: 1. use different comparing words 2. use different comparing structures
To show you what I mean, here are a few variations for you to consider. I’m going to choose In each case I suggest one word and show you how it can be used in different ways. The point is that if you change the form of the word, you change your gramamtical structure and that is a good thing. Tip: think about changing nouns to verbs or nouns to adjectives
So sánh | Com par e
This is probably the first word you’ll want to use. Note how it can be used both as a verb and as a noun and see also the different prepositions it uses.
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Đối c h i ếu | Contrast This is the next most important word. Here I have just shown you the noun forms, but you should note that in each case you end up using a different grammatical structure.
Tương đồng | Similar
K h ác b i ệt | Different
This is a handy alternative: a simple word that is very eff ective when making comparisons. Here the
main variations are between the noun “difference” and the adjective “different”.
Thay đổi | Chang e This is another very useful alternative with a noun and verb form that can be used for comparisons sometimes. It is mostly used of course when there is a time element to the diagram, but it can also be used in other cases too. 42
Write the report Now of course you need to write report. Try writing it for yourself and then comparing it with my effort which you can find as a comment below. You can also try this exercise to test your comparison language: Làm bài thực hành tại đây http://www.dcielts.com/exercises/task1/table3.htm
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Process diagrams
Giới thiệu The process diagram is in many ways the odd one out in academic task 1 and it requires some different language from the other task types. This lesson shows you some of the skills you need to tackle a process diagram. In it, I talk you through some of the difficulties in describing a process and suggest some basic techniques to help you understand the diagram and write the description. You will also find a sample task and description.
Đọc diagram – hãy tìm điểm đầu và điểm cuối | Reading a process diagram – find the beginnings and ends The first step in learning to write about a process diagram is to see where the process starts and ends. Sometimes it is evident, frequently it is less so. This is important information as it will help structure your writing. The obvious thing to do is to start at the beginning and carry on until you get to t he end. An example
Where is the beginning here? The customer pays by credit card (item 1). Where is the end? The merchant receives his money (item 7). We now know part of the structure of our report. 44
Hiểu các bước trong quy trình | Understand the different stages of the process The next point is to try and understand how the process works. Typically, there will be some problem in understanding the diagram: it is not always the case that everything is in a natural order. The key is to stop and think and look. This is a visual task and you need to look at all the visual clues. What you are looking for are normally simple things. It is often a good idea to ask yourself the WH questions. In the diagram above, we see the following details:
there are 5 parties involved (the pictures) (WHO)
there are 7 stages in the process (the numbers) (HOW MANY)
some of the arrows point in two different directions – this needs to be explained
item 4 seems to be out of order as it is next to 1
Hướng dẫn bố cục bài | Find a way of organising your description This is another thinking task. Before you start writing, you want to see if there is some way to organise your report into paragraphs. This is not absolutely essential but it can help the organisation of your writing. In the diagram above, there does seem to be a logical solution, as the process falls in to two parts: 1. the customer receives his goods 2. the merchant gets his money As this is the case, I am going to do the logical thing and divide my description into two main paragraphs. One to describe the authorisation process until the customer gets his/her money and one for the payment process until the merchant is paid.
Mở bài và kết luận | The introduction and conclusion This is a key part of your description. What you need to do here is to give the examiner an overall view of the process. Again, you want to ask yourself questions, such as:
what happens as a result of this process?
is there any change involved?
how many stages are there in this process?
is there one simple process or are there variations within the process? Typically, you will either write a longer introduction or add a conclusion. You will not normally need both an extended introduction and conclusion.
Ngôn ngữ miêu tả | The language of the description Topic language
The process will normally be an everyday event that everyone is familiar with, you should not need any specialised language. Sometimes, as in this example, you will be given some topic vocabulary. If you are, be careful of two points: 45
1. try to vary the language if you can, but don’t worry too much if you can’t. It may be that the language you are given is the correct topic language and there are no, or few, variations 2. don’t copy language incorrectly. If you are given a verb, you may need to change it into a noun
Xâu c hu ỗi các bướ c | Sequencing langu age
Some of the most important language you need is vocabulary to say in what order things happen. It is important to have some variation here. Some very basic options are:
next
then
after
before
once
ị động | Passives B
A key grammatical area is very often the passive. We use this when it is not important who “does” the action. So, if you have a process diagram showing the making of wine, you m ay choose to write: the grapes are cru shed and their stems are remo ved
Put simply, we make the passive by taking part of the verb “to be” and adding the 3rd form of the verb.
Bài mẫu và phân tích chi tiết | Sample description with detailed notes This diagram shows the different stages in the process of making a purchase with a credit card . We can see that it is a complex transaction with no fewer than five different parties involved and there are seven different steps until the merchant receives payment. The first step is that the customer offers to pay for the goods by credit card. At that point , the merchant has to request for the payment to be authorised by the credit card organisation, which must also request authorisation in turn from the consumer’s bank. Once that authorisation has been received , the merchant can then release the goods to the customer . The merchant, however, does not receive the money for the tr ansaction until it has paid a fee to the credit card organisation. After that has been paid , the consumer’s issuing bank will t ransfer the money for the transaction to the merchant’s own bank, which will then credit the merchant’s bank account with the amount of the purchase less the credit card fee.
Lưu ý | Notes introduction This diagram shows the different stages in the process of making a purchase with a credit card Simple sentence to start explaining what the diagram shows
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We can see that it is a complex transaction with no fewer than five different parties involved and there are seven different steps until the merchant receives payment. Complete the introduction by giving an overview of t he process (how many steps and how many parties) paragraphs 1 and 2 sequencing language The first step…At that point….Once that authorisation has been received…in turn…until… After that has been paid paragraph 1 organisation and vocabulary. This follows the authorisation procedure step by step until step 4. I have not changed the vocabulary much but I have used
“authorised” and not “authorisation” “customer” for “consumer” “goods” for “product” Paragraph 2 organisation and vocabulary The key to this paragraph is the first sentence. The merchant receiving his money is step 7. However, because it helps me organise the paragraph, I have used it out of order in the first sentence as the main point.
I have used some “new” vocabulary here:
purchase
credit
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Diagrams: Ngôn ngữ chỉ quy trình | The language of process diagrams Some of the most useful vocabulary for describing a process is the language of sequencing. This means that you need to find language to say in what order each thing happens.
The key here is variation. Try not to use “and then” “and then” all the time. He re are some alternatives Sample process chart
Stage and step These are two of the most useful words you can learn for processes.
Before and after Each of these words has grammar you need to learn. The good news is that each word shares the same grammar.
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Notes:
you cannot use a “will” after these words: so you cannot write “Before the customer will receive the goods”. be careful with “after” and “afterwards”: you use “afterwards” with a comma to mean later. Afterwards, the merchant receives paymen t from his bank.” Until This is a tricky but extremely useful word. Its general use is to describe something that happens up to a
point in time and then stops. It is frequently used as “not until”
Notes
Like “before” and “after”, “until” is not used with a “will” Be careful with the spelling. Until only has one ‘l”, unlike “till” which has “ll” Once
Another useful word. This means almost the same as “After”.
Having This is an excellent grammatical structure to use. It is just the sort of English that will impress the examiner.
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Diagrams: dạng bài miêu tả quy trình tự nhiên | Describing a natural process in task 1 writing If you are unlucky enough to get a process diagram in academic task 1, it is quite possible that you will need to be able to describe a process or cycle from nature. In this lesson, I talk you through how to approach this type of task with tips on understanding the diagram and writing a description that is coherent and well-structured.
The diagram
Understanding the cycle – what are the stages in it? The first step is to remember that your goal is to provide a clear summary of what the diagram shows. This cycle is difficult in that it has no obvious beginning or end. The idea is to try and look and see if you can divide the diagram into separate parts. This makes it easier to write about than if you look at he whole diagram at once. Put another way, I ask myself if there are any stages within this cycle I can use to structure my description. The top tip is to look for visual clues and here I see two dist inct stages by looking at the arrows: some point down and some point up.
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1. The food chain
Looking at the central part of the diagram, I see a row of arrows pointing downwards. This shows how carbon from the atmosphere is used by plants and animals. It is, if you look closely, a food chain. The atmosphere provides CO2 to plants which are eaten by insects which are eaten by small animals which are then eaten by larger animals. All I have to do now is put this into decent English, trying not to repeat the language of the diagram too much. 2. Return of CO2 to the atmo sphere
The second part of the cycle is quite straight forward. There are on either side a set of arrows pointing upwards to show the return of CO2 to the atmosphere. This shows me that respiration, fuel consumption and waste products are the 3 ways in which CO2 returns to the atmosphere to complete the cycle.
Thinking vocabulary
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This diagram gives you a certain of language. You have the choice of whether to repeat it in your description or try and vary it. What you do here will depend on how well you understand the diagram and the words. It is not an absolute disaster in this task if you do repeat some of the words from the diagram as they are technical terms. You should, however, try and find alternatives for the more general English words. carbon dioxide: no alternative atmosphere: no alternative
terrestrial and aquatic: either repeat the words, or if you understand them try “land and water” primary, secondary, tertiary: these mean first, second and third level
consumers: try the word “eat” or vary it to “consume” or “consumption” respiration: this means “breathing”
Read my sample description This diagram shows how the carbon cycle works in nature. The first part of the cycle is providing plants and animals on both land and sea with the carbon dioxide they need to exist and the second part of the cycle is the return of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The first part of the cycle shows a food chain where plants and grasses absorb carbon dioxide from the air. These plants are a food source for primary consumers such as insects which are in turn eaten by the second level consumers, including smaller birds and fish. At the end of this food chain are larger animals and mammals which use the secondary level consumers as a source of carbon and food. The second part of the cycle shows how there are two main ways in which carbon dioxide is returned to the atmosphere. This can either happen as a result of living beings breathing or consuming fuel, or as a product of the waste and remains from their death.
Các công cụ tạo liên kết trong bài | Understand the coherent structure of the description It is important that you make your description coherent and well-structured. The main idea is to think carefully about how you start your sentences and paragraphs. “This” is a very useful word here. This diagram shows how the carbon cycle works in nature. The first part of the cycle is providing plants and animals onboth land and sea with the carbon dioxide they need to exist and the second part of the cycle is the return of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The first paragraph is a summary of the whole diagram I show the examiner/reader that the cycle can be understood in two parts. These two parts are my two content paragraphs. 52
Both land and sea: I have shown the examiner I can rephrase some of the language from the diagram The first part of the cycle shows a food chain where plants and grasses absorb carbon dioxide from the air.These plantsare a food source for primary consumers such as insects which are in turn eaten by the second level consumers, including smaller birds and fish. At the end of this food chain are larger animals and mammals which use the secondary level consumers as a source of carbon and food. I start my paragraph with a short summary like sentence that links back to the introduction paragraph Each sentence begins with a linking phrase to connect it to the sentence before. The key word is THIS. The second part of the cycle shows how there are two main ways in which carbon dioxide is returned to the atmosphere.This can either happen as a result of living beings breathing or consuming fuel, or as a product of the waste and remains from their death. This paragraph also starts with a short summary sentence. This links back to the first paragraph and the introductory paragraph
“This”: I use the same linking technique to make sure my sentences are coherent
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IELTS Writing Task 1: Hướng dẫn luyện tập hàng ngày Part 1 writing in the academic module is often a problem for candidates for the very good reason that it is unfamiliar. Most IELTS candidates will have written many essays before they get to prepare for the exam – it’s something everyone goes th rough at school or university. In contrast, the task of analysing and writing a report on a chart or graph is quite often a new experience. So, while part 1 may be no harder than the essay, it may need more practice.
Tài nguyên Task 1 – The Economist The next problem is to find good practice material – it can be hard to find. I think I may be able to help out. Try The Economist magazine on the internet. It produces a daily chart that is very similar to part 1 IELTS – even better it gives you a short report that should help you with appropriate language. Here is the link. Economist – Daily Chart http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail?id=7933596
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Task 1: Lỗi kết hợp từ This is a vocabulary/grammar lesson on how to avoid one of the most common mistakes in IELTS writing – getting the right word, but the wrong form of it. It should be useful for candidates who find that
their scores are not improving. If that is the case, it almost certainly isn’t your exam skills which are the problem, it is your core language skills. The s uggestion is to take some time out from “learning” the exam and focus on English. Worried about the exam? This is particularly important in writing task 1 and you will find a challenging exercise at the end to test your task 1 skills.
Lỗi kết hợp từ Put simply, this is taking one word and making another word from it. Learning how to do this can help you in 2 ways. Firstly, you will avoid making mistakes. Secondly, it should make it easier to write, as you can say the same thing in more ways: you can writ e about “significant rises” and rose
significantly”. To see what I mean, take a look at the exercise at the end of this lesson.
Thực hành Read this sample task 1 writing and try and find how many different mistakes are in it. They are all the same type: word formation. It is clear from the line graph that there is approximate twice as much demand for electricity in winter as in summer. Demand in winter fluctuation around 40,000 units, while demand in summer is typically just under 20,000 units. Another main point is that the time of day affects how much electricity is used. In both seasons, there is less demand between 10 pm and 7 in the morning and there is a significantly fall in the units consumed; although during winter, there is a sharply rise from 32,000 to 38,000 units between 1am and 2 am. It should also be noted that there is a slight peak in summer time around lunch time where it reaches a high of just over 20,000 units.
Tại sao phải tránh lỗi này và các tips hữu ích This is an important skill for all parts of IELTS, but it is especially important in task 1 simply because when you are describing a chart or graph there are not many words you can use. That means that you need to be able to vary the form of the words you do use.
Tip 1. Try learning fewer words, learning them better 55
One reason why candidates make mistakes with vocabulary is that they concentrate on learning new and complex words to impress the examiner. That is not always the right approach. Complex words are hard to use and are often used wrongly. The alternative is to concentrate on using fewer words, but using them accurately which means learning all their different forms. This is really what my series of lessons on the Academic Word List is about. The AWL is not 570 words: it is 570 w ord families –
over 2000 words in all. That’s a lot.
Tip 2. Learn the different forms of the word The best way to avoid mistakes is of course not to make them in the first place. One way to do this is to make sure you learn different forms of the word and not just one word. For example, in my class this
week we had the word “product”, this m eant learning these words as well: produce production producer Knowing these different forms of the words allows you to say more things.
Tip 3. Make sure you write down phrases, not just words Another vocabulary learning tip is to write down phrases and not just individual words. This should help you remember how the words are used. This is important because sometimes different forms of the words are used differently: produce results the production of chemicals a film producer
Tip 4. Learn a little grammar Part of what I mean here is that you need to understand what verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs are. The more important point though is that you also need to know how we tend to use them in English. Here are some of the more common patterns: adjective – noun (“a rapid rise“) adverb – verb (“ rise rapidly “) adverb – adjective (“ significantly lower than”) noun – noun ( production costs ) The difficult one here is probably the noun-noun combination. However, you should also note the adverb – adjective combination. It is very idiomatic and useful in task 1 writing in particular, eg 56
significantly lower The one to be careful of is not using an adverb before a noun, here we need an adjective, eg: A rapidly rapid increase
Tip 5. Learn how different forms of words are made This is a tricky one as English has lots of different ways of making nouns, adjectives and verbs and
there are very few “rules”. This brief outline may help you out though. If you look at the ends of words, you can often tell what form of word they are, So, typically: nouns: –tion, -ment, -er/-or, – ity, -ness, -age, -ist adjectives: -ic, – al, -ive, -ous, -ble, -ful, -ant, -ent, -less verbs: -fy, -ise/-ize, -ate adverbs: -ly
Exercise – task 1 writing This is quite a challenging exercise. You will find a short description of a task 1 line chart. Your challenge is to rewrite it using the correct form of the words. exercise on line graph 1 : You need to change the form of the words in a short task 1 report to describe a line graph
Làm bài tập ở đây http://www.dcielts.com/exercises/grammar/line-graph.htm
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Bài mẫu Task 1 The Olympics medal table This lesson looks at possibly the hardest of the academic task one diagrams – the table. I have taken the Olympics medal table – a difficult table to describe because it contains so much data. If you can accurately describe this table, then IELTS tasks should be easier. I n many ways, the key is to allow yourself as much thinking time as possible – if you understand the table, then it is much easier to summarise it. To help you along the way, I suggest a 3/4 step thinking process that should allow you to analyse the table and give you some tasks to test your skills, before showing you my sample answer with writing notes.
Test yourself before you start You will find my sample answer below and my description of how I wrote it. A suggestion is that you try and describe the table yourself before looking at m y version and to compare my answer with yours.
Understanding the problem – too much information The problem is that this table gives you 50 pieces of data. You cannot include all this information – the idea is to select and summarise the main points and make relevant comparisons. This means that before you write you need to spend time analysing and understanding the data. This is normally harder in tables as they are the least visual of all the diagrams – you need to look at just numbers.
A possible solution
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Numbers can be confusing. So here is a possible solution. It helped me write my answer and it is a model that could/should work for most tables. It means doing two things: 1. deciding how to organise your answer – find two main topic paragraphs – the key ideas 2. looking at the extremes and how you would group information together – the main points and the comparisons Finding paragraph topics – the key ideas
You will almost always want to organise your report into two m ain topic paragraphs. This means that each paragraph should be about one idea. So, the very strong suggestion is that you spend time
deciding what those topics should be. They are normally “big things”. If you don’t get them, it may be because you think they are too obvious. Task Look at the medals table above and decide how you would organise the paragraphs. Think about how the table is organised. Your report wants to mirror the organisation of the table itself. You may have a different logical solution. If so, leave me a comment below. There is always/nearly always at least two different ways of approaching these tasks. My idea is this: 1. the table is organised by number of gold medals won – that should make one paragraph – it’s the most accurate way of describing the table – from first to last 2. the other paragraph relates to the total number of medals won – this gives different data – it’s a convenient way of looking at the bronzes and silvers – and, well, after gold medals, the total number of medals is the next most important item of information
Noting the extremes Important information to be included almost always includes the ideas of “the most” and “the least” – the extremes. This helps organise your report and is a first step to making some comparisons. Task Look at the table and answer these questions. In some ways, the key to doing this is to understand that you may be looking at more than country at once. Also. as you look at the total medal count, you may also want to make some comparison/contrast with the gold medal count. 1. Which country or countries won the most gold medals? 2. Which country or countries won the fewest gold medals? 3. Which country or countries won the most medals overall? 4. Which country or countries won the fewest? Here are my answers. As you work through this, you should see that I group countries together (to include as much info as possible) and I also begin to make some comparisons between the gold medal count and the total medal count: 59
1. USA and China I would put together – they won a simila r amount of gold medals. I’d also include GB and Russia together – maybe in another sentence. In comparison to t he other countries, they are much closer to USA and Russia 2. All of the other countries I would group together. Looked at overall, there is very little difference between 7 golds and 12 golds. 3. USA is again clearly first. Here though I would emphasise the fact that Russia and China had very similar medal totals. It is also possible to make a contrast with GB here that won comparatively few total medals. 4. This is the complex question. The countries I would emphasise are Hungary with the least at 17, but also South Korea which has a low medal total when compared to its gold medal count.
Grouping similar data together The next step I consider is how to group countries together. This is necessary from two points of view: 1. it helps make comparisons – part of the task 2. it allows you to summarise more effectively – again part of the task Task Look at the table above and decide: 1. which countries you would group together when describing the gold medals 2. which countries you would group together when describing the total medals
Here is my answer. Much of this should already be obvious from the previous tasks: Gold medals
USA and China
GB and Russia
The others (in order) Total medals
USA
China and Russia (contrast to GB)
South Korea and Hungary (half of total medals gold)
Germany and Australia (only 20-25% gold)
France and Italy (almost equal spread of medals)
What are the details to include?
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The key is that before you start to write, you should have some key points you want to emphasise. If you have worked your way through the tasks, you should have some idea about these. You will find my ideas below.
Order of gold medals and total medals are different – meaning one paragraph for each
USA and China top of both
Comparison between GB and Russia
Big gap between top 4 in gold medals and rest
Comparison between Australia/Germany and South Korea/Hungary in total medals
See my answer This table shows the ten most successful countries in the 2012 Olympics, from it we can see the number of gold, silver and bronze medals each country won. The ranking of the nations is organised according to the number of gold medals and not the total number of medals won. In terms of gold medals, the two most successful nations were the USA and China which won 46 and 38 golds respectively. After Great Britain and Russia in third and fourth place with 29 and 24 golds, there was a significant gap to the other nations (South Korea, Germany, France, Italy, Hungary and Australia), all of which won between 13 and 7 gold medals only. When we look at the total medals won, the United States was still the most successful nation with over 100 medals and Hungary the least with only 17. Russia with 82 medals overall, however, was only slightly behind China in second place, while Great Britain dropped to fourth place with 65 medals. Of the other nations, it is notable how almost half of South Korea’s and Hungary’s total medals were golds, whereas only between one quarter and one fifth of Germany’s and Australia’s medals were gold. France and Italy, in contrast, won an almost equal proportion of golds, silvers and bronzes.
Notes
“The ranking of the nations is organised according to the number of gold medals and not the total number of medals won. ” I choose to start with this summary type statement as it introduces my two main idea/paragraphs – gold medal count and total medal count there was a significant gap to the other nations (South Korea, Germany, France, Italy, Hungary and Australia), all of which won between 13 and 7 gold medals only. There is too much detail to include everything. I put these countries in order to show the order t hey
finished and group them together as there is a “significant gap” between the number of golds they won and those the other 4 countries won. It is not necessary to say exactly how many each country won When we look at the total medals won, the United States is still the most successful nation with over 100 medals and Hungary the least with only 17. I start the second para by giving the high figure and the low figure so the reader can picture the table.
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whereas/while These are excellent structures to allow you to combine information in one longer sentence and make a comparison/contrast at the same time.
Two pie charts and a line graph – farming in the UK This lesson gives you a sample task one report when you need to describe 3 different charts/graphs. This may look tough, but the principle is the same – organise your writing by selecting and reporting the main features in paragraphs. If you can do that, the writing is not so hard. To help you, I talk you through the process of organising your report into co herent paragraphs with a series of mini tasks. You can also download the report to read my writing notes.
Understanding the question The question is always the same for these charts and graphs: , S u m m a r i s e the information by selecting and reporting the main features making c o m p a r i s o n s where relevant. This means that when you look at the charts for the first time, you should ask yourself:
what are the main features?
how can I summarise them?
what are the comparisons?
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Bao nhiêu paragraphs là đủ? | How many paragraphs? – Normally two Before you write you want to decide how to organise the report. This m eans deciding how many major paragraphs you will write. The answer is almost always going to be two. If you only write one main
paragraph, you won’t be ab le to make the main points clear. If you write three main paras, you are almost certainly writing too much. Here it should be clear that the line graph describes one kind of data and the two pie charts another. Therefore you should write one para for the line graph and another for the pie charts.
Line Graph Finding the main points This is the key stage. Remember the task is to summarise the main points and this means “selecting” and not including absolutely everything. Very often the main points are simple to see – obvious things. Typically,there will only be 2/3 main points per chart. Task Look at the line graph and select the main points that you will use to organise your writing. At this stage you are not looking for numbers, just patterns. The tip is to think visually here, look for:
extremes (highs and lows) (beginnings and endings)
major changes (beginnings and endings again)
comparisons (what is the same,what different) (which is greater,which smaller)
1. twice as many dairy farms as arable farms (the blue line is higher) 2. difference between the two narrowed (look at the beginning and end) 3. both fluctuated and the pattern was different (look at the lines overall)
Finding supporting detail The next step is to decide what details you want to include. Again, you want to select here and not include all the detail. The details you choose should support the main points. Task Which numbers will you include in the report? These should support the main points above.
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1. twice as many dairy farms as arable farms – approximate numbers 1000 and 2000 and the years 2006 and 2011 2. difference between the two narrowed – fall to around 1900, rise to just under 1000 3. both fluctuated and the pattern was different – perhaps major fall in 2007 compared to rise in 2009
Pie charts Finding the main points When you have two charts with similar data, you should automatically look for comparisons between the two. The main questions to be asked are: 1. What has changed? 2. What is the same?
What is the same?
five crops – all should be named
potatoes and barley do not change What is different?
rape seed rose dramatically
corn and wheat both fell slightly Extremes
corn and wheat were highest in 2006
rape seed almost at same level in 2011
The details – grouping information The challenge here is not to simply list all the data.One way to do this is to group similar bits of info together. In this case,
potatoes and barley belong together
wheat and corn belong together If you can do this, then you will avoid some repetition and summarise more effectively.
Read and download the report and notes These charts show the changes in the number of dairy and arable farms in the UK and the changes in the arable crops grown between 2006 and 2011
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The line graphs show that there were almost twice as many dairy farms as arable farms throughout this period, with the numbers fluctuating around 2000 farms and 1000 farms respectively. However, this difference did narrow by 2011, when the number of dairy farms had fallen from 2000 to approximately 1900, while arable farms had risen slightly to just under 1000. Although arable farming fluctuated only slightly, there was a steady decrease in dairy farms from 2007 onwards from a high of around 2050. The pie charts show that while there were the same five main crops in 2006 and 2011, there was a notable change in the proportion of these crops. In 2006, wheat and corn accounted for just over and under one third of arable farming respectively, with potatoes, rape seed and barley all around 10%. By 2011, however, almost a quarter of arable farmland was devoted to rape seed and corn and wheat were around 5% less common than before. There was little or no change in potatoes and barley. In conclusion, the main changes were the growth of rape seed farming and the fall in dairy farms. Download version with notes
On this download you will find notes on:
number language
trend language
approximation language
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Structure The introduction simply summarises the question and what the charts and graphs show. There is one main paragraph for each set of charts and graphs. The conclusion is a simple summary sentence - one sentence long picking out the main points.
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Ngôn ngữ So sánh trong Task 1 This lesson looks at some more advanced comparison vocabulary for academic task 1 writing to talk about the degree or size of the comparison. The idea is generally not enough to say that something is
“bigger than” something else, you n eed to say by how much and that there are times you want to use words and not just numbers.
Why do you need this language? Why not just use numbers? An extremely interesting comment on this site came from someone who asked whether it was wrong to say som ething was “far more” than something else on the grounds that t his was a subjective opinion and the task is to describe the data objectively. My answer to this is: this is a language task and you should try to use language and not just numbers in your answer this is a summary task and that means that you do not include all the numbers, but describe some of them in language mostly, you should try and combine words and numbers together in order to give the examiner/reader as much information as possible in your summary statement, however, (normally either your introduction/conclusion) you may simply use words without numbers because it is a general description of the chart/graph/table
Amounts and numbers
Notes
Considerably and significantly have similar meanings. I would say that considerably is the stronger word, but someone else might tell you different! A useful alternative to marginally is fractionally .
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Be careful with countable and uncountable words. You use amount and less with uncountable words such gas and number, and fewer with countable words such as people. I would avoid using a lot more as this is rather non-academic language. Alternatives would include far more and a great deal more.
Differences
notes
You should be careful with the prepositions here. You talk about a difference between two things, but say one thing is different from (or sometimes to) something else.
Similarities
Notes
While you cannot use , you can say almost the same as
Other useful adjectives
notes
The preposition used with both these words is to. So one thing can be identical or comparable to something else. 68
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Sử dụng Thời trong Task 1 In this lesson I give you a quick outline on using tenses in task 1 writing. This is a common problem for many candidates who forget to use the correct tense. In some ways, the advice is quite simple and can be summarised in these two tips: LOOK TO SEE WHETHER THE CHART/GRAPH IS ABOUT THE PAST, PRESENT OR FUTURE CHECK THAT YOU DON’T CHANGE TENSE HALF WAY THROUGH THE SUMMARY
Một số ví dụ The golden rule is to look at the title of the chart/graph and the x/y axes to see what t ime is used there. You then use that time to choose the tense you write in: if the time is 1999 then you choose the past if the time is 2030 you choose a future if there is no time you use the present simple
It really doesn’t make too much difference if y ou are looking at a pie chart or a bar graph here. The idea is the same. Example 1 Look at this pie chart. What time does it show? Which tense would you choose?
This should be easy. The time is 1999 and so you will use the past tense. Example 2 Look at this bar chart. What time does it show? What tense would you use? 70
This may be slightly more confusing. You can’t see any time. You should look though at the words in the title: “use most frequently” is a present tense and so the chart is about general pre sent time and so you will want the present simple. Example 3 Look at this pie chart and do the same thing:
I hope you see that this pie chart refers to the future and so we’ll need a future tense to describe the information in it.
Some more complex examples – varying your tenses Sometimes you get charts/graphs that allow you to use more than one tense. Example 1 – charts with changes in time in the past – using different verb forms Look at this bar graph. W hat are the times? Which tenses can you use?
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You see here the years from 1999 to 2007. This means that you want the past. It is possible just to use the past simple: The average price was £97,500 and then it rose to almost £130,000 and then it dropped slightly in 2006 and finally fell to around £110,000 in 2007. Correct English, but boring. You want to try and vary your grammar to get a higher score. What you can do here is After it had reached a peak of almost £130,000 in 2005, the average price dropped slightly in 2006 before finishing the period at £117,000 in 2007 The change in time (from 1999 to 2007) allows you to use the past perfect (had tense) too and you can also use a participle (-ing form) in the same way. Example 2 – charts/graphs with the past and future – using two tenses In this next example you should see that the you will need to use more than one tense just because the two charts relate to different times – the past and the future. [I should add that this is an unusual example]
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Here the easy answer is that you use a future to describe the first chart and a past for the second one. The simple thing to do is use one paragraph for one chart and another for the other – being careful to get your tenses right each time. But there is a more complex answer too. You need really to c ompare the changes in sources of power
– from 2012 – 2030. To do this you may use one of the less usual tenses in English – the future perfect: By 2030 the use of coal will h ave decreased by 10%. The idea remains the same though – if there is something in the future you want to use a verb form that is also future..
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Task 1: Hướng dẫn viết Kết luận How do you write an academic task 1 conclusion? Do you in fact need to write a conclusion at all? This is a common question/problem for IELTS candidates. One answer is that there is no one answer! There are in fact different approaches that can work and it is one of those areas where candidates need to find out what works best for them. Is that confusing? Here is a brief summary of what is possible. You can write a quick conclusion at the end o r a summary statement at the beginning In either case you should give an overview/summary of what the chart shows, focussing on the main points not include any “opinions” of your own about what the chart shows
The information you include will likely be the same in either case – it’s largely just a question of where you put it. The key is to recognise that at some point you need an overview or summary.
Why you might not write a conclusion at the end You won’t need a conclusion if 1. you have written a strong introduction with a summary statement and identified the main
patterns/trends of the chart/graph in the introduction,so you don’t need to repeat yourself in the conclusion. 2. you have written very clear “topic” sentences in your m ain paragraphs and the main points are already clear and cannot easily be summarised
Why you might choose to write a conclusion You may want one if: 1. your introduction is weak and merely rewords the ti tle of the chart/graph and doesn’t pick out any main points 2. you have only written one “content paragraph” in which case it may not be easy to see what the main points are 3. you just feel happier writing conclusions and/or you are not certain of the main points before you start writing. You really need to find out what works best for you. 4. you want to make sure you hit the word limit and want more words (though you should be aware the examiner will not count any words that are simply repeated)
Kết luận trong Task 1 nên như thế nào về… 74
