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Hi, I’m Oli.

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Welcome to Oxford Online English!

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In this lesson, you can learn how to answer
IELTS academic writing task one questions.

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In task one of the academic IELTS writing
exam, you have to summarise and describe the

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information given to you in some kind of chart.

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You might have to summarise and describe a
pie chart, a line graph, a bar chart, a table,

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a diagram, or even a map.

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Are you watching on YouTube?

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If so, you can find a link to our website
in the video description.

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The lesson page on our website includes the
task as well as a model answer.

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We recommend watching the video on our website
so you can refer to the task and the model

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answer while you watch.

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One more thing: do you want to watch this
video with subtitles?

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You can!

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Just click the ‘CC’ button in the bottom
right of your video player.

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In this lesson, you’ll see a sample IELTS
academic writing task 1 question.

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You can learn how to approach these questions
and write your own answer.

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You’ll also see some useful tips to help
you improve your IELTS writing score.

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Let’s start by looking at our sample question:
So, what should you do first?

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With all IELTS writing, you need to organise
your ideas before you start.

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For a chart such as this one, think about
how to connect the data.

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Often, IELTS academic task one questions contain
lots of data.

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Many students try to present every piece of
information, like a big list, but this is

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a mistake.

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Do you know why?

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If you do this, your writing will probably
be too long and repetitive.

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You also won’t have much progression in
your writing, which is needed for C&C scores

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of six or higher.

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So, you need to connect and group the data,
but how?

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There’s no general rule here, but here’s
a good starting point: look for *similarities*

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and *contrasts*.

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In this question, you should look for similarities
and contrasts both within each chart, and

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between the two charts.

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Think about it now.

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Look at the charts, and try to find similarities
and contrasts in the data.

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You can see the full-sized chart on the webpage
for this lesson.

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Don’t forget: if you’re watching on YouTube,
there’s a link in the video description.

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Pause the video, and do it now!

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Ready?

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Here are some ideas.

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In the first chart, the proportions for ‘living
with flatmates’ and ‘living with parents’

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are similar, and they’re much larger than
the other two segments, which are similar

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to each other.

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In the second chart, the proportions for ‘living
with flatmates’ and ‘living alone’ are

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similar.

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‘Living with a partner or spouse’ is much
larger than all the other groups.

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Between the two charts, the proportions for
‘living alone’ are very similar.

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The other segments are all quite different,
especially ‘living with a partner or spouse’.

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Did you get these ideas, or did you have different
ideas for similarities and contrasts?

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There’s more than one way to do this.

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But, you should think about this point before
you start writing.

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Try to make connections in your head, and
put the data you’re given into groups.

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This will help you to link the data when you
write, which is necessary for higher scores.

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What else should you do before you start writing?

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One: for a chart, check whether it shows figures,
or percentages, or a mix.

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You need different language to talk about
these things.

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If the chart shows figures, you’ll need
to talk about numbers, figures, amounts, and

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so on.

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If the chart shows percentages, you’ll need
to talk about percentages and proportions.

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Here, these are pie charts, so you need to
talk about percentages and proportions.

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Two: check if the data relates to the past,
the present, the future, or a combination.

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Sometimes, we see IELTS students who don’t
pay attention to this, and then they mix different

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verb tenses in their answer.

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This could hurt your score.

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Decide what verb tenses you need (past or present or future or mixed) and try
to keep it in your head as you write.

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Here, the charts are from 2015, so you’ll
need past verb forms.

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Three: ask yourself if the charts refer to
a moment in time, or changes over time.

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You’ll need different language in each case.

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Here, the charts refer to a moment in time.

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This means you’ll need to use the verb ‘be’
a lot.

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You won’t use verbs like ‘increase’
or ‘change’, like you would in some IELTS

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task one questions.

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Make sure you organise your ideas clearly
*before* you start writing.

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Time spent planning will increase your chances
of writing a well-structured, complete task.

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Now, you’re ready to write.

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How should you start?

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At the start of your answer, you should do
two things.

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One: write a short paragraph – one or two
sentences – saying what the chart shows.

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Two: write another short paragraph with an
overview.

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This doesn’t have to be a separate paragraph;
you can put it together with the first paragraph

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if you want.

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It doesn’t matter.

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Let’s look at these one by one.

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For the first paragraph, you just need to
restate the information in the instructions,

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*but* you should use paraphrase or different
structures to avoid too much repetition.

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Look at the example from our model answer:
Often, IELTS students have problems with this.

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This is because they try to follow the sentence
structure in the task, and just change the

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words.

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Paraphrase is useful, but you need to use
other skills, too.

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For example, you can use different references.

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The task refers to ‘two charts’ while
our model answer refers to ‘pie charts’.

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You can put ideas in a different order.

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The task says ‘living arrangements of two
different age groups’, but in our model

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answer, we switch the order of these ideas,
as well as changing the words.

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Sometimes, paraphrase is enough.

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The task mentions ‘a certain country’.

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In our model answer, we paraphrase this to
‘an unspecified country’.

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Finally, you can avoid repetition by using
different levels of generality or specificity.

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The task refers to ‘living arrangements’;
in our model answer, we list the four specific

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categories.

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You don’t need to change *everything* from
the task.

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It’s fine to copy and repeat small chunks
of language.

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Also, there are some things you have to repeat.

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Here, there’s no way to change ‘in 2015’,
so we kept it the same.

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One final point: it’s fine to copy any text
which appears on the chart itself.

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This means you can – and should – copy
the categories, like ‘living alone’, ‘living

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with parents’ and so on.

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That gives you your first paragraph.

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Next, you need to write the overview.

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You can also put your overview paragraph at
the end, if you want.

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For your overview, think about this: imagine
you want to tell someone about the chart,

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but you can only say one or two sentences.

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How would you do it?

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Hopefully, this question is easier, because
you planned your answer, and found connections

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between different points, and looked
for contrasts and similarities.

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You did that, didn’t you?

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You can use that here!

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Your goal in the overview is to take the most
important points from the chart, without going

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into detail.

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If you want to try, then pause the video and
write your own overview sentence.

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We’ll show you our example in a few seconds.

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Did you do it?

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Here’s our model sentence:
Our model overview is two sentences.

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An overview should be one or two sentences
long.

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If your overview is longer, it’s probable
that you’re either including too much detail,

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or separating ideas which should be combined
into one sentence.

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Don’t mention any specific numbers or statistics
in the overview.

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Include big-picture details only.

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Here, you can see two ideas.

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One was comparing the two charts, and highlighting
that the trends are different in each one.

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The second idea highlights the most popular
living arrangement in each group.

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Like many things here, there isn’t just
one way to write an overview.

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However, someone who reads your overview should
have a general idea of what the charts will

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show.

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Now, let’s see some skills you need to write
the rest of your answer.

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After your overview, you’ll write one or
more paragraphs, explaining the contents of

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the charts in more detail.

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In this and the next three sections, you’ll
see some common problems which IELTS students

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have, and how you can avoid them.

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First, it’s easy for IELTS task one answers
to become repetitive.

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Look at a sentence:
Looks fine, right?

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Let’s add another one.

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Hmm…

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Not sure this is going well.

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Let’s add one more.

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Do you see the problem?

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If you write like this, your writing becomes
repetitive, and starts to feel like a list.

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Even if you change some words, like using
‘approximately’ instead of ‘about’,

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or ‘proportion’ instead of ‘percentage’,
it won’t solve the problem.

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So, what should you do?

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There’s more than one idea here, but first,
you need to try to use varied sentence structures.

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Look at the first sentence you saw before.

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Here’s a challenge: how many ways can you
think of to say the same idea, without changing

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the meaning, or losing any detail?

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Pause the video, and try to write this idea
in at least three different ways.

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Do it now!

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Could you do it?

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Here are some possibilities.

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‘Around 20% of 25-34-year-olds lived alone.’

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‘Among 25-34-year-olds, around 20% of people
lived alone.’

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‘In the 25-34 age group, about 20% opted
to live alone.’

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‘Approximately one fifth of those aged 25-34
lived by themselves.’

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What about your ideas?

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Were they similar to these, or different?

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So, what’s going on here?

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First, you can simply change the order of
the ideas, as in sentence one.

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You can use an adverbial, like ‘among 25-34-year-olds’
in sentence two.

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You can use different words to refer to the
same thing.

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For example, instead of ’25-34-year-olds’,
sentence three refers to ‘the 25-34 age

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group’.

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Instead of ‘around 20 per cent’, sentence
four refers to ‘approximately one fifth’.

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Sentences three and four also change the words
‘lived alone’, either by adding an idea

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– ‘opted to live alone’ in sentence
three – or by paraphrasing – ‘lived

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by themselves’ in sentence four.

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Be careful with this, because when you change
the words, it’s easy to change the meaning.

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Make sure that your words have the same meaning
as whatever you’re referring to.

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Learning to vary your sentence structure is
vital if you want to get higher scores for

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C&C and grammar.

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However, there are other key skills you need.

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Let’s look at another!

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Look at two sentences.

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These sentences are fine, *but* if you write
your whole answer like this, it will probably

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get overlong and repetitive.

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Also, to get higher grammar scores, you need
to use a range of complex sentence structures.

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So, you should try to combine ideas where
you can.

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For example:
You can also combine contrasting ideas, using

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conjunctions like ‘while’, ‘whereas’,
‘although’ and so on.

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Here’s a task for you.

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Look at the two charts, and find two contrasting
data points.

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Write *one* sentence describing them both,
linking the two ideas with a conjunction.

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Pause the video and try it now!

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Did you do it?

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Let’s look at one example:

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‘Among 35-44-year-olds, almost half lived
with their partner or spouse, while a much

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smaller proportion lived with their parents
(around 10-15%).’

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Of course, there are many possibilities here.

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But, you should be thinking about this all
the way through your answer.

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Look through the model answer.

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Try to find where we’ve combined two or
more ideas in one sentence.

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Take note of different ways to combine similar
or different ideas, and try to use them in

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your writing.

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Let’s move on and look at one more key skill.

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Look at these three sentences.

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‘The number of 35-44-year-olds living with
their parents was quite high – around 50.’

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‘The percentage of 35-44-year-olds living
with flatmates decreased dramatically compared

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to the younger age group.’

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‘Just over a quarter of 35-44-year-olds
lived by themselves.’

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What do you think?

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Good sentences, or not?

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All three sentences have problems.

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Can you find them?

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You’ll need to look at the charts, too.

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Pause the video and think about it if you
want.

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Any ideas?

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Let’s look together.

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All three sentences have issues with precision
of language.

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We see these problems often in our students’
IELTS writing.

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The first sentence refers to ‘number’
and ‘around 50’.

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This is too loose.

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First, the pie charts don’t give you *numbers*,
in the sense of quantities.

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It’s a percentage, so you should use the
word ‘percentage’ or ‘proportion’.

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Secondly, what does ‘50’
mean?

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50 what?

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If you mention a number, you should add the
units, in this case, ‘per cent’.

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The second sentence has two problems.

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First, it doesn’t make sense to say that
the percentage ‘decreased’.

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‘Decrease’, ‘increase’ and similar
verbs are used when things change over time,

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but these pie charts refer to one moment.

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Secondly, ‘dramatically’ suggests a very
large difference or change, but in this case,

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the difference between the two percentages
was not that great.

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IELTS students often try to use words like
this to increase their vocabulary score.

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However, it’s more important that your words
fit the data accurately.

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Here’s a better version of sentence two:
What about the third sentence?

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Very simple: the information is incorrect.

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The pie chart shows that just *under* a quarter
of this age group lived alone.

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When you’re under time pressure, it’s
easy to make mistakes like this.

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However, mistakes with the data will limit
your TA score to six, so it’s important

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to make sure you get every detail accurate.

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Don’t forget to practise this further by
visiting the full version of this lesson on

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our website.

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You could also try writing your own answer
for this task.

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Good luck if you have an IELTS exam coming
up soon!

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Thanks for watching!

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See you next time!