How to Plan your Academic IELTS Task 1 writing

In this tutorial we are going to look at a Strategy for Planning your Academic IELTS Task 1 writing and the reason we’re going to talk about this is because it’s very easy with the Task 1 to jump in and start writing your answer without really carefully taking on board all the data you have in front of you and how you are going to use the time you have.

Why a strategy is a good idea.

Remember it is suggested that you only allow about 20 minutes for Task 1 in the IELTS exam so you need to write as efficiently and as accurately as you can so that your answer will have maximum impact and therefore the chance for the best result possible. A lack of planning and absence of a really careful and sensible Strategy for Planning your Academic IELTS Task 1 writing can result in you missing key data, such as identifying whether a chart is dynamic – that is, if it changes over time, or if it is static- giving you a snapshot of a particular moment, or what unit of measurement the numbers are given in.

This tutorial offers you three great things.

* WHAT you should look for when you see the graph or pie chart or bar chart or table or even a mixture of those – increasingly popular in recent exams at the moment.

* HOW the planning works in action using a line graph to work through this process, then use notes to answer the question really efficiently.

* BUILDS confidence and the ability to meet the criteria listed in the IELTS band assessment scores. Finally we will look at a Band 7 model answer for the question and work on how this could be upgraded to a Band 8 or even Band 9.

1.Why is planning so important – I don’t have time!

The recommended time for IELTS writing task 1 is 20 minutes and it can seem like a real challenge to ‘select, report and compare’ so much data in that short time. But by taking 3 -4 minutes to plan you are actually saving time! How?

* If you know what to write, then the actual writing is easy!

* If you plan first, you will not waste time deciding what to write next.

* When you plan you write a few notes, and these will be the guide to your actual answer.

* Remember: it does not take long to write 150 words when you know what to say!

2.Taking notes and organising them. 

In an exam you are under pressure and you may think that you will remember what to say but also, when you are stressed, you may not…so make notes on a piece of paper (you will be provided with this in the exam room) and then make sure you organise them so you can use them really efficiently.

If you follow the planning strategy here then you will be ready when you get into the exam to use this 3-4 minutes time in the best possible way. Learn and practice the strategy before you go into the exam.

3.Match your plan to the task by understanding the rubric.

For Academic writing task 1 diagrams the rubric or question is always the same. You are always asked to ‘Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons were relevant’. Let’s look at this in more detail because this is the basis of the strategy.

A 5 point strategy in 5 minutes.

* Time period and vocabulary.

* LOOK: Is the diagram dynamic (time changing) or static (one point in time). This tells you the kind of language you need (rose dramatically, fell steeply) or facts. The time period also tells you the tense you are going to use. This is so important and an area where lots of students make mistakes.

* What is the data referring to? Student courses, computer owners, travel destinations. Thinking about this activates your vocab.