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ielts writing task one lesson one
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in this lesson i'll quickly explain what
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we're going to do on this video course
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for writing task one
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similar to what we did um for task two
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in the task two lessons my aim is to
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give you methods and techniques to look
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at the task to break it into parts and
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to give you a good approach good methods
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for those parts so for example of course
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we'll look at the different types of
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writing task 1 question
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a few things to remember before we start
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the writing task 1 the task is to
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describe
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a figure some kind of
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graph chart diagram
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that you see your task is to describe it
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and write a report on it you are not
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supposed to give your opinions you don't
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know why the line on a graph goes up or
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goes down you haven't got the research
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all you see is the graph and you
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describe what you see this we would call
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a report is the description
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task so no opinions first of all and
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another important thing before we get
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going i'll just say this now
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no conclusion because a conclusion is
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like a final opinion a final judgment so
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we're never going to put a conclusion in
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writing task one you can put a summary
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in writing task one examiners call this
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the overview but it's the same as a
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summary so if you want to put something
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general at the end of your essay in
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writing task one let's call it a summary
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and not a conclusion
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so i've said that writing task 1 is a
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report it's a describing task we have no
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conclusion but we do have a summary
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and we're going to look at
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the different types of question in fact
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i'm going to define them as six
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different types which i'll show you in a
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moment and then i'll give you techniques
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for those six types and we'll work on an
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example question for each one i said we
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were going to look at the six question
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types for writing task one
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so here they are
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line graph bar chart pie chart table
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a diagram that's comparing things or a
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diagram that's showing a process
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i consider a map to be a type of diagram
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so maps are included in either number
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five or number six
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now i always ask my students what do
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numbers one to four line graph bar chart
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pie chart and table have in common i've
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highlighted those four in green because
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they're very similar the reason is the
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answer is that they have one thing in
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common which is that they all show
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numbers
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when you're describing a line graph bar
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chart pie chart or table you're just
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describing something that shows numbers
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people often ask me
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is there some special language that i
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need to know for pie charts or for
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tables the answer is no there's no
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special language the language for those
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four types is exactly the same
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it's number language and the only things
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you have to do really are three things
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you might have to describe one number
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or
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for more than one number you might have
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to compare so you need some comparing
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language
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you need to know how to compare numbers
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in a sentence and the final thing with
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numbers is to be able to describe
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changes or trends that's where you use
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your
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increase decrease language those are the
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only three things in terms of language
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that we need to really worry about
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describing numbers comparing more than
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one number and describing these changes
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and trends
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in fact
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number five the diagram
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you're using very similar language
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describing and comparing things on a
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diagram of course there are no numbers
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but the comparing language is going to
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be very similar the only one that has
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different language where you need to use
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something different is the process
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diagram and we'll talk about that in a
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lesson dedicated to the process diagram
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questions later in this course
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but in terms of language just remember
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that it's fairly simple we've got four
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types that are all the same just showing
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numbers and there's only this one type
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where we need to look at some slightly
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different language uh items or
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structures
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moving on from question types to
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essay structure
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i'm going to show you now the four
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paragraph structure that i always use on
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my blog my website and with my students
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here in manchester if you've followed my
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blog lessons you should already know
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this here are the four paragraphs that i
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suggest
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introduction overview which you can call
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summary if you want the examiners call
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it an overview and then two paragraphs
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of details
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no conclusion you notice i said that
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earlier in this lesson but if you want
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you can
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put the overview at the end we can have
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a summary at the end i personally prefer
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to put it second because i know how
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important the overview is for your score
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so i do it just after the introduction
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but it makes no difference you can put
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it at the end as a summary if you want
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just don't begin with in conclusion
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begin with in summary or
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it is clear that something that shows
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this is a general summary of the
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information
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now moving on the introduction what do
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we do very simple one sentence
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paraphrase the question so you take the
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question
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and you go through it bit by bit
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changing the words if you can maybe
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change the order you don't have to
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change everything just try to change
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the keywords in there anyway moving on
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the overview or summary what do we do
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well my advice is this is very important
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so i give it two sentences
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and in those two sentences you're
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looking to explain or describe sorry the
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main
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general things
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so look for two main things two main
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points
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you'll see how what i mean in in more
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detail when we actually do some
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questions later on this course
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then finally we have two paragraphs
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about the details this is where you
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include
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numbers and you do your comparisons
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your describing trends if there are
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trends shown
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sometimes people ask me why do we need
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two paragraphs well the simple answer is
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this makes you organize or group the
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information better
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if you can
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for example if you've got numbers you
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might put all the higher numbers in one
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paragraph and the lower numbers in
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another or you might put the first half
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of the period in paragraph three and the
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second half of the period of years in
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paragraph four just grouping and
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organizing this will help
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your score for coherence and cohesion
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makes your structure look better
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and that's it no conclusion remember
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that's the structure and i've shown you
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the types of questions in the rest of
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this course we're going to go through
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those different question types so next
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lesson next week we will start with the
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line graph question
