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

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

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.

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

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

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

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.

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

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

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

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.

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

A decrease: After the initial four years, the companys 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?

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

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.
Lets 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:

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

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 wont 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.
Lets look at a dynamic chart:

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

10

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.

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

11

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.
Lets 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 lets look at a static chart:

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

12

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 isnt a significant amount of
difference between the bottom 6 countries.
Lets try and turn the things Ive 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:

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

13

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

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

14

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.
Shouldnt 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.

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

15

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

16

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
students scores down.
Accuracy of grammar

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

17

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

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

18

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

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

19

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

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

20

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.

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

21

Overall it is clear.

Overall the majority/minority.

In sum, the most noticeable trend is.

Dont 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

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

22

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.

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

23

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

"Invest in yourself. Your career is the engine of

your wealth." - Paul Clitheroe

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, its
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. [Wheres 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

Dont 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 dont worry too much if you cant. It may
be that the language you are given is the correct topic language and there are no, or
few, variations
2.
dont 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