Vocabulary for Academic IELTS Writing Task 1
Short Description
IELTS...
Description
1
Vocabulary to represent changes in graphs:
Type of Change
Adverb form
Adjective form
Rapid change
dramatically / rapidly / sharply / quickly / hurriedly / speedily / swiftly
dramatic / rapid / sharp / quick / hurried / speedy / swift
Moderate change
moderately / gradually / progressively / sequentially
moderate / gradual / progressive / sequential
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Slight change
slightly / slowly / mildly / tediously
slight / slow / mild / tedious
Example: 1. 2. 3.
The economic inflation of the country increased sharply by 20% in 2008. There was a sharp drop in the industrial production in the year 2009. The demand for new houses dramatically increased in 2002. Vocabulary to represent frequent changes in graphs:
Type of Change
Verb form
Noun form
Rapid ups and downs
wave / fluctuate / oscillate / vacillate / palpitate
waves / fluctuations / oscillations / vacillations / palpitations
Example: 1. 2.
The price of the raw materials fluctuated for the first three months. The graph shows the oscillations of the price of fuel from 1998 to 2002.
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Highest Point
peak / culminated / climax / reach a peak / hit a peak / touch the highest point / reach the vertex
a peak / hit a vertex / get a vertex / get the highest point
Lowest Point
touched the lowest point / get the lowest point /
the lowest point /the lowest mark / bottommost point / rock bottom point/ bottommost mark
Example: 1. The price of the oil reached a peak amounting $20 in February and again touched the lowest point amounting only $10 in July. 2. Student enrollment in foreign Universities and Colleges increased dramatically hitting a peak of over 20 thousand in 2004. Vocabulary to represent comparison in graphs: Type
Word(s) should be used
Similar
about / almost / nearly / roughly / approximately / around / just about / very nearly /
Just over
just above / just over / just bigger / just beyond / just across
Just short
just below / just beneath / just sort / just under / just a little
Much more
well above / well above / well beyond / well across / well over
Much less
well below / well under / well short / well beneath
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Example: 1. The number of high-level women executives is well beneath than the number of male executives in this organization where approximately 2000 people works in executive levels. 2. About 1000 people died in the highway car accident in 2003 which is well above than the statistics of all other years. 3. The number of domestic-violence cases was just below 500 in March which is just a little over than the previous months. Words to make a comparison / contrast: a bit / slightly / a little / only just / approximately / about / almost / precisely / quite / nearly / considerably / a huge / a great deal / quite a lot / completely / exactly Example: » This year population growth of the country is slightly larger than the previous year. » This year population grown is almost twice than 2007. » Sale of the company has increased quite a lot this year. Vocabulary to write the Conclusion part: To draw the conclusion : In conclusion / To conclude / On the whole To Summarize : In short / In brief / To sum up / In summary Examples: « In conclusion, third world countries have improved their production sectors like: garments, over the last 10 years whereas the first world countries have improved their technology and research sectors in the same period. « In brief, the overall sale of the company has improved in the last 5 years except 2005 when the sale reduced significantly due to retrenchment. Following are the vocabularies for Academic IELTS Writing Task 1 grouped as Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb, and Phrase to help you improve your vocabulary and understanding of the usages of those vocabularies. Noun: Increase: A growth: There was a growth in the earning of the people of the city at the end of the year.
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An increase: Between the noon and evening, there was an increase of the temperature of the coast area and this was probably because of the availability of the sunlight at that time. A rise: A rise of the listener in the morning can be observed from the bar graph. An improvement: The data presents that there was an improvement of the traffic condition between 11:00 am till 3:00 pm. A progress: There was a progress in the law and order of the city during the end of the last year. Rapid Increase: A surge: From the presented information, it is clear that there was surge on the number of voter in 1990 compared to the data given for the previous years. A rapid increase/ a rapid growth/ a rapid improvement: There was a rapid growth in the stock value of the company ABC during the December of the last year. N.B: Following adjectives can be used before the above nouns to show a rapid growth/ increase of something: Rapid, Sudden, Steady, Noticeable, Mentionable, Tremendous, huge, enormous, massive, vast, gigantic, monumental, incredible, fabulous, great etc. (The above list is the words which are actually adjective and can be used before nouns to show the big changes) Highest: A/ The pick: The number of visitors reached to the pick in 2008 and it exceeded 2 million. Top/ highest/ maximum: The oil prices reached to the top/ highest in 1981 during the war. N.B: Some of the words to present the highest/ top of something are given bellow: Apex, pyramid, zenith, acme, obelisk, climax, needle, spire, vertex, summit, tower, most, greatest, max, tops, peak, height, crown, Changes: A fluctuation: There was a fluctuation of the passenger numbers who used the railway
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transportation during the year 2003 to 2004. A variation: A variation on the shopping habit of teenagers can be observed from the data. A disparately/ dissimilarity/ an inconsistency: The medicine tested among the rabbits shows an inconsistency of the effect it had.
Steadiness: Stability: The data from the line graph show a stability of the price in the retail market from January till June for the given year. A plateau: As is presented in the line graph, there was a plateau of the oil price from 1985 to 1990. Decrease: A fall: There was a fall of the price of the energy bulbs in 2010 which was less than $5. A decline: A decline occurred after June and the production reached to 200/day for the next three months.
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A decrease: After the initial four years, the company’s share price increased and there was a decrease of the loss it was bearing.
IELTS Task 1- How to Write an Overview The overview is probably the most important paragraph in the whole essay. In fact, as we will see later in this post, it is very difficult to score 7 or over without a good one. An overview is simply a summary of the main or most important points in a graph, chart, process or map. It is normally 2-3 sentences long and should be the second paragraph you write in your essay. As we will see below, it also influences what you write in the rest of your essay. Learn how to write a good one and you are much more likely to get a high score. If you know how to select the appropriate data and you practice writing a clear overview, then you are likely to get the score you deserve in this section. What is an overview?
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To understand this we must look at the question. The question for academic task one is always the same: Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. We therefore need to provide a short summary of the main features. You do this in the overview paragraph by picking out 3-4 of the most significant things you can see and writing them in general terms. By general, I mean you do not support anything you see with data from the graph or chart, just write about what you can see visually. Let’s look at an example:
Overall, I notice that there are 7 regions. Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America make up the majority, with North America being the largest. Africa, India, Latin America and China make up a very small proportion. We can then include these things in an overview paragraph:
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The pie chart is comprised of 7 regions in total with Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America making up the vast majority of global wealth. North America has the single biggest share and Africa, India, Latin America and China combined, only make up a small proportion. As you can see, I have not talked about individual fractions or percentages, in fact I have not supported any of my features with data. Instead, I have just reported what I can see visually, without looking closely at the data. If you have to look at the data, then you probably won’t write a good overview. How do I select the correct features? To understand this we have to think about the different types of graphs and charts we might see. There are generally two different kinds of charts and graphs: dynamic and static. Dynamic charts show data over time and static charts show data at just one point in time. This will affect the type of data we select. Let’s look at a dynamic chart:
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As you can see, the graph is dynamic because it shows data over a period of time. We should therefore look at the general trend over the time period. First, we should look at what happened from the start (2011) to the end (2014). From the start to the end both lines increased. Then we should look at any other general trends for each of the two lines. We can see the blue line (women) goes up until 2013 and then does down a little. The green line (men) goes up slightly and then has a very large increase between 2012 and 2014.
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These are the most striking or most obvious things we can see when first looking at the graph and these are perfect for our overview. Let’s put this information into a sentence: Over the entire time period the number of men and women reading books increased. Women saw a steady increase between 2011 and 2013 before declining in 2014, while men increased gradually at first before rocketing up in the last two years. When we are looking at dynamic graphs we should be looking out for:
What does the data do from the start to the finish?
Do they generally go up or down or do they fluctuate?
Any significant difference from the general trend?
Overall increase/decrease?
Peaks/lows?
No let’s look at a static chart:
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This chart is different from the last one because there are no dates to look at; it is data from just one point in time. We can therefore not talk about general trends over time. Instead we are more concerned about comparing the data between the different sources. In this case, we will be comparing the data between countries. The first thing I notice is that all countries are below 400k except two of them. Switzerland and Australia are the biggest and Singapore and the U.K. are the smallest. Switzerland has almost double the average. There isn’t a significant amount of difference between the bottom 6 countries. Let’s try and turn the things I’ve noticed above into an overview: The graph compares eight countries with only a small amount of difference between the bottom 6. Australia and Switzerland have the highest average wealth, with Switzerland averaging nearly double the value of the two bottom countries. When we look at static graphs we should be looking for:
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What are the highest/lowest values?
What are the most noticeable differences?
Any similarities?
Any significant exceptions?
Is there any special grammar? You should try and make a complex sentence by making a subordinate clause. Complex sentences are sentences with more than one clause and they help increase our marks in the grammatical range part of the marking criteria. You can easily make a subordinate clause structure in the overview by joining two pieces of information with the words ‘while’. ‘although’, ‘with’, ‘even though’, ‘whereas’ or ‘and’. However, make sure you know the meaning of these words and how they are correctly used in a sentence. How does an overview fit into the rest of my essay? The overview should be the second paragraph of a four paragraph structure: Paragraph 1- Paraphrase Sentence Paragraph 2- Overview Paragraph 3- Details Paragraph 4- Details
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I tell my students to write the overview before the details because it makes it clear to the examiner that you have identified the main features and it also helps you write the details paragraph. In the details paragraphs you will simply take the statements you made in the overview and support them with data. Shouldn’t I write a conclusion? No. Conclusions are really a summary of what you think or opinions. This is not an opinion essay and you therefore do not need to write a conclusion. Save your conclusions for task 2. Example Below is one final example following the structure I used above. I have highlighted the overview in yellow. Notice how I have picked out the most significant/noticeable/important features and talked about them very generally in the overview. I have not used any data in the overview. However, I have taken the features from the overview and supported them with data in paragraphs 3 and 4.
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I hope you found this post useful and if you have any questions please let me know in the comments section below. You are here: Home / Writing Task 1 / IELTS Writing Task 1 Grammar and Vocabulary Guide IELTS Writing Task 1 Grammar and Vocabulary Guide This post will help you improve your grammar and vocabulary for IELTS task 1 writing questions.
The IELTS writing test marking scheme is divided into four parts:
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Task Achievement
Lexical Resource
Coherence and Cohesion
Grammar therefore accounts for 25% of the marks in your writing test. You are assessed on two things: 1.
Your ability to produce grammatically accurate sentences;
2.
Your ability to use a wide range of grammar structures.
Grammar is often the area that students struggle with the most and it can easily bring a student’s scores down. Accuracy of grammar
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Examiners look for how many ‘error free’ sentences you have. You therefore need to make sure each sentence has no errors. Even a small mistake like an article in the wrong place or misplaced plural counts towards this. This is why it is so important to check your work after you finish writing. Always try to leave yourself two minutes at the end to check your work. Simple errors, which could be fixed with a quick check, will really bring your marks down in this area. Range of grammar A good answer will have a range of appropriate structures and tenses. Many students try to insert complex sentences and tenses in to their answers. This is not how to do it and will result in your answers looking unnatural and you making mistakes. If you write a good answer, complex sentences, such as conditional and relative clauses will flow naturally. Below is some advice on certain grammar structures that will help boost your mark in part one of the writing test, if used appropriately. I have only included advice for charts, such as pie charts, line graphs and bar charts, in this post. I will deal with process diagrams in a separate post. Describing Trends IELTS Task 1- Describing Trends over time | Create infographics In IELTS writing task 1 you may have to describe trends. This may come up in a line graph, bar chart or when comparing more than one chart. There are two main grammatical structures we can use to describe trends. 1.
There + be + adj. + noun + in + noun phrase
Example: There was a gradual rise in the price of oil. There has been a sharp drop in the price of oil. Possible adjectives
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gradual
dramatic
significant
moderate
slight
considerable
modest
steep
rapid
sharp
steady
Possible nouns:
variation
drop
growth
decline
fall
increase
decrease
peak
rise
dip
fluctuation
slump
2. Noun phrase + verb + adverb 3. Example: 4. The price of oil rose gradually. 5. The price of oil has risen dramatically. 6. Possible verbs:
rise
rocket
go down
jump
fall
plummet
grow
drop
plunge
climb
decline
increase
decrease
moderately
modestly
Possible adverbs: gradually
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sharply
steeply
considerably
dramatically
steadily
rapidly
slightly
significantly
slowly
Describing Increases and Decreases
When describing any of the charts in IELTS writing task 1, you might have to describe increases and decreases. There are three main ways you can describe increases and decreases.
1.
Noun phrase + verb + adverb
Example:
The price of property fell sharply
The percentage of homes dropped dramatically.
2. There + be + noun + in + noun phrase
Example:
There was a fall in literacy levels.
There has been an increase in the cost of coffee.
3. Using fractions
Example:
The price of oil halved in less than a year.
The price of oil have halved since July.
By July, the price of oil has halved.
Making Comparisons
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1.
IELTS writing task 1 will often require you to make comparisons between data sources, groups and times. Here are five grammatical structures you can use to make comparisons. More/few/less + noun + than
Example:
Overall, more people preferred public transport than taxis.
2. of one syllable -er + than
Example:
A higher number for people preferred public transport than taxis.
3. More/less + adj. of more than one syllable + than
Example:
Taxis were more popular than public transport.
4. of one syllable -est.
Example:
The highest % of commuters preferred taxis.
5. The most/least + adj. of more than one syllable.
Example:
The least popular mode of transport was buses.
Summarising
IELTS writing task 1 is essentially a summarising task. Your overview paragraph should contain two or three sentences summarising the main features of the graph. In order to help you do this, here are some short phrases. To summarise, the most marked change is….
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Overall it is clear….
Overall the majority/minority….
In sum, the most noticeable trend is….
Don’t say ‘to conclude’. This is only for discursive essays.
Tenses
Using the appropriate tenses in IELTS writing task 1 is essential if you want to get a high band score.
The key is to look at the title of the chart and the information contained on both axes to establish what time frame is used. This will help you establish what tense you should use.
Example:
If the time is one point in the past, for example January 1990, then we should use the past tense.
If it has projections for the future, for example 2045, we use future tenses.
It there is no time, we use present simple.
1.
Below are a range of tenses that could be used in task 1. Remember, the tense you use will depend on the information displayed in the graph. This is not a complete list of tenses and an awareness of all the English tenses will help you achieve the IELTS score you need. Present Perfect:
We use this tense generally to talk about an action that happened at an unspecified time before now. The exact time period is not important.
In writing task 1, we use this tense to talk about changes in data that have happened over a period of time.
Example
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The price of oil has fallen by $5 a barrel every week since July.
2. Present Perfect Continuous
We use this tense to show that something started in the past and has continued up until now.
Example
Oil prices have been decreasing since July.
3. Future Perfect
We use this tense to state that something will be finished by a particular time in the future.
We often use it with ‘by’ or ‘in’.
Example
The price of oil will have reached $300 a barrel by 2020.
4. Past Simple
Use this tense to talk about an action that started and finished at a specific time in the past.
Example
The price of oil fell from $150 in Jan 2014 to $50 in Jan 2015.
Approximations, Percentages and Fractions
In many of the IELTS writing task 1 questions you will have to deal with percentages. This is a good opportunity to express these percentages in a different way and boost your score. A way of varying this language is to express them as fractions or proportions.
Remember that you should vary your language as much as possible in order to score high in the ‘lexical resource’ part of the test.
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It is also fine to use approximations, for example, 49% can be expressed as nearly a half.
Below are a range of expressions that can be used to express percentages.
Fractions
73%- nearly three quarters
50%- exactly a half
51%- just over a half
26%- roughly one quarter
49%- just under a half
49%- around a half
32%- nearly a third
24%- almost a quarter
3%- a tiny fraction
77%- approximately three quarters
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Proportions
70%- a large proportion
71%- a significant majority
15% a small minority
3%- an insignificant minority
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.
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 the end.
Some of the most important language in task 1 is the compare and contrast vocabulary. This is because the instructions tell you to
make comparisons where relevant
If you want to score well, you need some different ways to compare and contrast. Here are some variations to help you out. It is not all about more and less.
1. Comparisons between sentences
One way to make comparisons is to start a new sentence with a word/phrase that shows that you are about to make a comparison with the previous sentence. The basic words you need here are:
In contrast
The most popular form of holiday among the Welsh was self-catering with over 60% choosing to cook for themselves. In contrast, only 5 % of the English chose this form of vacation and hotel accommodation was much more popular at 48%.
In comparison
Almost 50% of the English, Scots and Northern Irish chose to stay in a hotel for their holiday. In comparison, staying in self-catering accommodation was much less popular with around 10% of people choosing this.
However
The general pattern was for hotel accommodation to be the most popular with around half the people choosing it. The majority of the Welsh, however, chose to stay in self-catering accommodation.
On the other hand
It is clear that a majority of the British chose to stay in hotel for their holiday. On the other hand, there was an exception to this because over 50% of the Welsh opted for self-catering accommodation.
Note that we normally use a comma after In contrast and In comparison.
Note that there are lots of different ways to use compare and contrast and these are just the most basic examples. If you are looking for a higher band score, it’s good advice to learn different ways to use these words.
Note too that typically however is not used as the first word in a sentence.
2. Comparisons within sentences
Another possibility is to compare two pieces of information within the same sentence. The basic words you need here are:
while
While there are 4 million miles of train lines in the UK, there are only 3 million in France.
whereas
Whereas the majority of the French prefer to travel to work by train, only a small minority of the British do.
although
Although 15% of the French read novels, only 5% of the British do.
but
Almost 25% of French females study maths with a private tutor, but nearly 60% study English with one.
3. Comparisons with more or less/fewer
This is another obvious way to make comparisons and contrasts. You should note though that you are normally going to compare numbers and nouns and not adjectives. You want to remember these two key bit of grammar:
Than
Remember that after more/less/fewer we use than
5% more girls chose to read books than go to cinema.
Fewer/less
If the word is uncountable we use less, if it is countable we use fewer:
Fewer mobiles phones were bought in 2013 than 2014.
Less oil was consumed in 2013 than 2014.
4. Qualify your comparisons with much/far/slightly or a number
This is similar. The idea here is that you still use less/more/fewer but this time you explain how much. Typically, the best way to do this is to use a number:
Far fewer people chose to travel by train than by car. [Where’s the detail?]
25% fewer people chose to travel by train than by car. [Better now we have detail and not just a comparison]
5. Comparisons with most or least/fewest
When you are looking for details to include, the highest/lowest number is almost always important. This too is a form of comparison.
The most popular form of entertainment in the UK was going to the cinema.
The least common form of transport was taking a taxi.
6. Comparisons with similar or same or as…..as
Don’t forget that some of the numbers you will be comparing are similar. These are the basic words and structures you need.
Similar (to)
The percentage of females and males who studied languages at university were very similar.
A similar amount of gas and electricity was used domestically in homes.
The figures for 2012 were very similar to the figures for 2013.
Same as …as
The percentage of females who studied at university in 2011 was almost exactly the same as in 2012
7. Comparisons with differ/different/difference
If something is similar, it can also be different! Here is another set of basic variations for you:
The amount of time spent at home differed by almost 25% according to gender.
There was a difference of over 25% in the amount of time males and females spent at home.
This figure was very different among males, only half of whom watched television.
8. Comparisons with numbers
Another way to make comparisons is to do some simple arithmetic! Here are some simple variations:
[5 million] more/less/fewer
5 million fewer units of gas were sold in 2014.
Twice
Twice as many people elected to use gas and not electricity for cooking [note the twice as …as structure]
Twice the amount of gas was used for cooking in this period. [note that we amount with uncountable nouns]
Three/four etc times
Four times as many people chose to heat their house with electricity as with gas.
Half
Half the number of people chose to use gas as electricity.
Electricity was half as popular as gas for cooking.
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.
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 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. 2.
the customer receives his goods 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.
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.
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:
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 Sequencing language
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
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