Writing IELTS Task 1

– Grammar for Academic Task 1 Essays –

For Writing IELTS Task 1 essays, you are required to describe the detail in a chart, graph, table, map or diagram, most especially, to record changes in data.  

This will involve:

To do this, you will need to use particular sentence structures and these are one of the things we’ll be learning about in this lesson.

We’ll also be looking at common Task 1 verb tenses and other elements of grammar that frequently cause problems for students.

Here’s an overview of the lesson:

1) Verb Tenses

The choice of which tense to use will be determined by whether or not the graphic contains dates and, if it does, whether the dates are in the past or the future.

Follow these guidelines:

The tenses you are most likely to need are:

   – Present tense – present simple, present perfect or present perfect continuous

   – Past tense – past simple

   – Future tense – future simple or the future perfect

The table below gives explanations of these verb tenses and examples from Task 1 essays.

Common Writing IELTS Task 1 Verbs

Most graphics will require you to compare data from two or more time periods, for example, past and present or present and future predictions, so you will need to use a range of different tenses in your essay, as appropriate.

The key word in the sentence above is ‘appropriate’. Whilst you will gain marks for using a good range of tenses in your Writing IELTS Task 1 essay, you should never do so just to show that you know many different tenses. Only use the tense that is 100% correct for expressing a specific piece of information. It is accuracy that the examiner is looking for.

2) Key Sentence Structures

The first two steps of writing a great Academic Task 1 essay are to:

I cover these tasks in detail in the lesson on How To Understand & Analyse Task 1 Questions.

Once you’ve done this, you’ll understand what you’re required write about. It will be one or more of these things:

There are specific sentence structures that you can use for each and these are what we’re going to look at next.

How to Describe Trends

The two most useful grammatical structures for describing trends are:

How to Describe Increases and Decreases

The two most useful grammatical structures for describing increases and decreases are:

How to Make Comparisons

Useful vocabulary for making comparisons includes:

These words can be used to form many different sentence structures useful for making comparisons, such as.

These sentence structures are valuable tools for getting high marks for your Writing IELTS Task 1 essay, so practice using them.

3) 2 Common Grammatical Errors

For many students, two aspects of grammar that are a particular problem are:

Prepositions

There are two specific prepositions that you will probably use numerous times in your Task 1 essay when reporting change – ‘in’ and ‘of’. They are easy to get wrong.

Follow this general rule:

For example:

‘Of’ is also used after a value. You will probably want to use proportional values in your Task 1 essay so here are some examples.

You’ll find lots more vocabulary for expressing proportional values in Writing IELTS Task 1 essays on this page: Vocabulary for Task 1 Academic Essays

Another preposition to learn is ‘between’ which you will need to make comparisons. For example,

Articles

Many languages do not have articles, and native speakers of those languages can find it a huge challenge to remember to use them.

In English, there are three articles – the, a, and an. Each is used in specific instances.

1) With singular and plural nouns:

• Use the before singular and plural nouns when the noun is a specific thing. For example,

• Use a or an before a singular noun or noun phrase when the noun is non-specific and could be any one of a group or type.

• Use a before a noun or noun phrase beginning with a consonant. Use an before a noun or noun phrase beginning with a vowel.

For example,

2) Noun combinations:

Also, use a/an before adjective singular noun combinations such as these from our preposition list:

The key to improving your grammar is to know your weaknesses and focus on these as you practice and when you check your work in the exam.

Grammar for Academic Task 1 Essays Grammar for Academic Task 1 Essays Grammar for Academic Task 1 Essays