Writing Task 1 · session 4 of 8

Chart to 160 Band-7 Words in 20 Minutes

GoalBy the end you can look at any Task 1 figure and decide, in 90 seconds, what your overview sentence says and which two or three groups get a paragraph.

How this session runs

flowchart TD
  A[Read figure for 90 seconds] --> B[Write the whole-figure claim]
  B --> C[Group the data into two or three]
  C --> D[Paraphrase the rubric as sentence one]
  D --> E[One paragraph per group with figures]
  E --> F[Check 150 words and tenses]

Think of it likeTask 1 is a commit message, not a diff — the overview is your subject line saying what changed overall, the two or three groups are your body bullets with real numbers, and describing every data point scores exactly like a commit that just lists every touched line.

The overview is a claim about the whole figure, and it lives in sentence two

For exampleDana in Amman lists every figure from a Wales qualifications chart — 13% of men with degrees, 28% of women with GCSEs, 168 words, all accurate. Grade 6: no real overview. One sentence naming the whole pattern would have moved it.

The ruleYour overview is a single claim about the figure as a whole — the message a reader would keep if they forgot every number — and it belongs in sentence two, straight after the paraphrase, or as the closing line. It is not the introduction. (Improve Your IELTS Writing, p. 88; New Insight Part 3 Writing, p. 99)

TrapDana's last line — men had more higher degrees whereas women had more GCSEs — compares two groups, not the chart, so the examiner still wrote no real overview (IYIW, p. 89).

flowchart TD
  A[Chart in front of you] --> B[Sentence one paraphrases the task]
  A --> C[Sentence two states the whole message]
  B --> D[Introduction alone caps you at six]
  C --> E[Overview is the band seven move]

Group, signpost, then illustrate — never walk the rows

For exampleOmar in Dubai reports the internet-activity table row by row: social networking 14 to 24 per cent, email 16 to 9, messaging 11 to 6. Eight facts, no shape. Grouping all three as online communication gives one signposted point instead.

The ruleBefore you write, group the data into two or three themes, open each paragraph with a signposted general statement — The most significant change… / Another noticeable trend… — and support it with figures from the figure. If no theme appears, switch focus and regroup by direction of change instead. (Collins Writing for IELTS, p. 51)

TrapOmar's fix was cosmetic — he kept all eight rows and slotted on the other hand between them; grouping means dropping rows, not linking them (Collins, p. 50).

flowchart TD
  A[All the rows in front of you] --> B[Group by theme]
  B --> C{Does a pattern appear}
  C -->|Yes| D[Signpost each group then add figures]
  C -->|No| E[Switch focus and group by direction]
  E --> B

Join trends with followed by and after plus -ing, not and then

For exampleLayla in Riyadh writes the obesity graph as it rose to 15 per cent and then dipped and then rose again — correct, and flatly simple. Rewritten as a slight dip, followed by a gradual rise, the same data reads band 7.

The ruleChaining trends with and caps you below Band 6.5. Replace the joins: followed by plus adjective plus noun, after plus -ing with a subject in the main clause, and since then for the run up to the present. Your content does not change — only your grammar range does. (Collins Writing for IELTS, p. 113)

TrapLayla swaps and then for moreover and in addition instead — heavy connectives bolted onto still-simple clauses, which Collins flags separately as making the text hard work (Collins, p. 75).

Situation

Eighteen minutes in. Your Task 1 answer covers a two-figure task — a line graph of disposable income by age and a table of product sales — in four tidy paragraphs, 162 words. Reading back, you see you wrote that falling income among 15-24s caused the drop in trainer sales.

Decide: You have two minutes. Do you spend them hedging that causal claim, or adding the overview sentence you never wrote?

Teach it back

I wrote 180 words, every number is right, and I still got 6 for Task 1. What am I missing?

An overview — one sentence stating what the whole figure means, not a restatement of what it shows
Grouping — two or three themed groups, each signposted and backed by figures, instead of a row-by-row list
Placement and wording — the overview in sentence two or the final line, and the rubric paraphrased rather than copied

Check yourself

Answer, then see immediately whether you were right and why.

Your bar chart answer has three grouped paragraphs and 158 words. The final line reads: Overall, men had more higher degrees whereas women had more GCSEs. Two minutes left. What do you do?

Why This exact script scored 6 with the comment details are accurately listed, but there is no real overview — the closing line compares two categories rather than stating the chart's whole message (Improve Your IELTS Writing, p. 89), so b supplies what is missing. Option a is tempting because the line does begin with Overall and the last paragraph is a legitimate position; but position was never the problem, and New Insight Part 3 Writing, p. 99 defines an overview as an overall summary of the information, not a comparison of two groups.

A line graph shows HARRY'S hamburger sales for all twelve months of 2007. You have 14 minutes left and you write fast. Which approach earns the most marks?

Why New Insight Part 3 Writing, p. 101 says it outright: twelve sentences about HARRY'S annual sales — one for each month — is repetitive and, more importantly, is NOT describing the main trends; c selects periods and adds the overall shape, which is what the criterion rewards. Option d is the seductive one because it looks like a compromise that fixes length, but the penalty is for describing every detail instead of selecting, so repackaging the same twelve facts changes nothing. Option b at least selects, yet extremes are not periods of change.

Two minutes left. You count roughly 142 words and need 150. The task statement is sitting right there on the page. What do you write?

Why Copied rubric words may be excluded from the count, so you stay under 150 and take the length penalty on top — Improve Your IELTS Writing flags precisely this in two graded scripts: copying the rubric reduces the word count (p. 94) and the rubric is copied, reducing the word count (p. 95). Option a is tempting because it is the fastest eight words on the page. Option b is right because a supporting figure both counts and earns Task Achievement marks (Collins Writing for IELTS, p. 51). Option c repeats a point you already made, and d cannot be finished in two minutes.

A line graph of disposable income and a table of product sales appear to move together, and you want to say so. Which sentence do you write?

Why Collins Writing for IELTS, p. 59 tells you to note a cause-and-effect relationship but to hedge it — appears to cause, may lead to — because Task 1 never asks you to interpret or to refer to anything outside the figure; b is the book's own model wording on that page. Option d feels sharper and more analytical, which is exactly why candidates choose it, but it imports a reason the figures do not contain and is treated as going beyond the data. Option c throws away the comparison the two-figure task is built to reward.

A table of seven world regions gives user numbers, percentage of population online, and ten-year growth. You grouped by continent and nothing lines up. Three minutes of planning left.

Why Collins Writing for IELTS, p. 51 names b as the procedure: if you cannot see a pattern immediately, switch your focus — the worked example first groups online activities by theme, then regroups by type of change. Option a is the panic move, and it produces exactly the row-by-row band-6 response printed on p. 50. Option d is closest to a real step, since Collins does start by asking what general points the bottom row supports, but that row feeds your overview, not your body paragraphs. Option c selects by size rather than by relationship, so no comparison emerges.

Your line-graph paragraph reads: It rose sharply for ten years and then it levelled off and then it dipped. Everything is correct. One minute to improve it. Which edit is worth most?

Why Collins Writing for IELTS, p. 113 is explicit: if you are aiming for Band 6.5+, avoid using and too much — use followed by plus adjective plus noun, and after plus -ing instead of subject plus finite verb, which is exactly the rewrite in c. Option a is the instinctive fix and the trap: Collins p. 75 warns that in addition and moreover make the text heavy, and neither adds a single complex structure. Options b and d leave every clause simple, which draws the band-6 comment simple sentences are used well but complex structures are lacking (Improve Your IELTS Writing, p. 89).

Not started

In one sentence, now that you've seen itTask 1 is marked on the one sentence that names what the whole figure means and on the two or three groups you chose to keep — not on the numbers you managed to fit in.

Collins Writing for IELTS, pp. 10-11, 16-19, 26-27, 50-51, 58-59, 75, 113; Improve Your IELTS Writing, pp. 86-90, 93-95; New Insight Part 3 Writing, pp. 99-104 (via agents/ielts-complete-preparation/learned/writing.md).

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