Hướng dẫn chi tiết giải quyết các dạng bài IELTS Writing task 1 ( DC IELTS )

Line graph & Trend vocabularyAdvice 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

May 4 IELTS

Writing

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Bạn cần làm gì với IELTS Writing Task 1 | Understand what you need to do in task 1 3

Tổng quan Task 1 4

The chart types 4

Biểu đồ tĩnh và động về mặt thời gian 4

A video tutorial 4

Những ngôn ngữ cần dùng 4

Line graph & Trend vocabulary 6

Từ vựng chỉ xu hướng | Trend vocabulary 6

Up verbs 8

Down verbs 9

Từ vựng chỉ xu hướng | Tính từ và Trạng từ 9

Other useful adjectives 11

Bar charts 12

Phân tích những thông tin chính và nổi bật | 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 tắc: Chọn cách đơn giản nhất | Choose the simplest option 13

Main details – NOT every det ail 15

Some tips 15

Hãy luôn bắt đầu với những gì nổi bật và dễ nhìn | Start with the obvious 17

A sample report 20

Hướng dẫn lựa chọn thông tin đúng cho Bar chart | Choosing the right details in a bar chart (chi tiết) 21

Cách bố cục bài 21

Kỹ năng paraphrase | The key skill – paragraphing 21

Key features là gì? | What are key features? 21

Pie charts – những cách để miêu tả tỷ lệ | Pie charts – different ways to describe percentages 24

Bảng biểu | Tables 33

Bức tranh tổng thể | The 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 nhiều số liệu | The problem – too much information 37

Giải pháp | A solution – divide and conquer 37

Đâu là main features? | What are the main features? 38

Bố cục bài làm | Organising your report 39

Ngôn ngữ so sánh | Comparisons in task 1 tables 39

Process diagrams: tổng quan 44

IELTS WRITING TASK 1 1

Diagram – hãy tìm điểm đầu và điểm 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 tả 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 mẫu 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 67

Differences 68

Similarities 68

Sử dụng Thời trong Task 1 70

Task 1: Hướng dẫn viết Kết luận 74

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 the same eachtime

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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 Thestarting 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 dynamicchart 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 cannotuse the famous “trend language” in static charts where there is no change in time Many candidatesfocus exclusively on this language That is a big mistake

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 tocopy 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

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 there 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)

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 thatdescribes

Tip: if you find yourself repeating a word, try changing the form of it from a verb to a noun

You should also note that, even with this basic language, there are a variety of grammar problems thatcause many candidates problems That’s bad

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 thatsometimes 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

 “Soar “and “rocket” are both very strong words that describe large rises “Rocket” is more sudden Youprobably do not need to qualify these verbs with adverbs

 “Leap” shows a large and sudden rise Again, you probably do not need to 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 Trạng từ

Bài tập thực hành với tính từ và trạng từ chỉ xu hướng

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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 youuse adjectives with nouns and adverbs with verbs:

 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:

 “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

 “marginal” is a particularly useful word for describing very small changes

Other useful adjectives

These adjectives can be used to describes more general trends

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 reportthose 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 wayhow to identify patterns in bar charts

Sample task

The bar chart below shows the different types of accommodation chosen by the British when they went on holiday in 2012 Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where 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

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? Asyou do this I suggest that you

don’t worry about names of countries and types of accommodation Think colours and lengths Lookdon’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) first – 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 simplequestions What is the biggest? Are they the 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 anexception

 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 the 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

and Wales showing the main pattern I start by noting the most evident feature of the chart I also use

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%).

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 Thisbrief tutorial gives you a sample task 1 report and some tips on how to select the main features of abar chart

Main details – NOT e ve r y de ta il

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 youagree with me My sample answer is further down the page

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A sample essay

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 83years 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 greatestdifference 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

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

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 decidewhat 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 atthe 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 proficientsecond 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 secondlanguage

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 thing 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

organising the data This is what you should see and need to include:

I’ve helped you here by

re-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 and42%)

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

Likewise with females, it’s

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 simply looking at the length of the lines onthe “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

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 males and then makes a contrast with females Doing it thisway 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 numbersrun logically from high to low

Download

The bar chart below shows the percentage of male and female students in a variety of countries worldwidewho are proficient in a foreign language Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant

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 guide 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 identifykey 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 yousee?

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

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)

Supporting detail: men and women

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)

Supporting detail: purposes

This is fairly straightforward as all you need to do is arrange the different categories into an ordershowing 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

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 fewheadings

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 followed 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 In 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 grammaritem 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”

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, Ilook 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 isexplaining 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:

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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 you 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 along time learning about the language of trends when they 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 atthese 3 pie charts and ask yourself what language you need

A chart with percentages

A chart without any numbers

A chart with numbers

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 thelanguage 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.

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 versionwith more vocabulary and grammar you can borrow

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 thetask and your band score, it will also help you write your description The main points are normallyobvious 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

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 ashort description of the task we have:

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.

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, trylooking for:

1 the biggest number

2 the smallest number

These are generally important details to include You should also consider what changes beween thetwo 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 writeyour 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

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 andaerobics last

note the biggest changes – cycling, jogging and aerobics all big fallers, swimming the big riser

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 ofthe 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 whichstayed 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 answerswith extensive vocabulary notes My suggestion is start with the first one Don’t be worries that it lookstoo simple it isn’t It is in fact extremely good – band score 9 The when you have that right, take alook 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

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 (Lexicalresource) This answer can help you by extending the range of vocabulary you use for:

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

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 vocabulary

“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 toavoid this is to use “Americans” This is a more advanced version – you respond to a survey and thepeople to respond to a survey are “respondents”

Linking phrases

summary paragraph Note the comma

use a phrase like this when you are writing about the main points of the chart/graph

is about a different topic.This is a good structure to borrow

for big differences

similar ideas Note the comma

Dealing with numbers

“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?” Another 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” isquite a neutral word so you can qualify with adverbs like “significantly”

“with the result that“: note the structure here The fall in popularity means that it has become lesspopular This is an idea you can borrow.

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 isvery largely an organisational task and to do it well, you need to learn how to organise your answer inparagraphs 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 Onething 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 yoursummary 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

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 highestproportion 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 Youjust 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 andfind some patterns to help you write and avoid repetition

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 , then the other, then theother 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.

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

half that amount at around 12% While in the Czech Republic 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 almostalways 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 in the 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 In 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 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

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 amodel 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 below shows the in which sector of the economy different age groups were

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 to select the main features of the 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 The key is to understand that you have two sets

of data: