IELTS Commentry: Academic IELTS Writing Task 1

Wednesday 3 March 2021

Academic IELTS Writing Task 1 – How to Describe Line Graphs

When you don’t get Band 7 for your Academic writing, even though you have good grammar knowledge and a wide range of vocabulary, it is disappointing and seems very unfair. In the 10 years Adam worked as an IELTS examiner, he saw it happen too many times – all because people didn’t know how to write a correct Writing Task 1 response.

In this video Adam shows you step by step how it is done. He gives you a way to analyse the line graph before you start writing, some tips how to reword the task prompt easily, and he also demonstrates how to write a great overview and how to compare and contrast.

Watch the lesson on YouTube, or below:

In the video

1. What are you comparing?
In this particular double line graph it is the length of stay of public and private hospital patients.

2. How are you comparing?
Here you need to look at the units used in the line graph. You want to note that the length of stay is measured in days, and that there are many age groups, each with its own length of stay.

3. When are you comparing?
For this graph it is last year, which means you will be using past tense to describe the graph. The period of time always affects your grammar, and you should be aware of that.

4. Is there an overall trend?
If both line graphs follow the same trend, even for some of the time, it will help you describe them.

5. What are the similarities?
Look at the two graphs to see where they declined or rose at the same time.

And there is a lot more to learn, so do watch the entire video, because Adam explains everything in a very easy to understand way. It won’t take you long to start writing Band 7+ reports!

Adam doesn’t give you a model response in this lesson, because he would like you to have a go and write your own. But if you’d like to see a Band 9 sample, check out our High Scorer’s Choice IELTS practice tests. This particular topic can be found in Package 2 and we also provide a model response for it, as well as all the other writing tasks.

Enjoy the lesson!