IELTS Academic Writing Task 1

Bar Chart

There are 5 steps to writing a good IELTS bar chart essay:

1)  Analyse the question

2)  Identify the main features

3)  Write an introduction

4)  Write an overview

5)  Write the details paragraphs

Steps 1 and 2 of the planning process should take around 5 minutes. It is essential that you don’t miss these out as they are the key to writing a high-scoring essay.

Ideally, your essay should have 4 paragraphs:

Paragraph 1 – Introduction

Paragraph 2 – Overview

Paragraph 3 –main feature

Paragraph 4 –main feature

1. Introduction (paragraph 1)

You should start your answer by writing an introduction. The introduction is 1 or 2 sentences, where you paraphrase the information from your question. You should mention two things in your introduction:

• what your chart shows
• for what period of time

To write a well- structured essay you must do 3 things:

1. Select the main features.
2. Write about the main features.
3. Compare the main features.

2. Overview (Paragraph 2 )

The second paragraph of your answer is a general overview, where you briefly describe major trends on your graph. Ideally, you should describe 2-4 key features. Never write the numbers and percentage in this paragraph.Use word overall to start your general overview.

3.Specific details (Paragraph 3 and 4)

After we’ve written the introduction and general overview, it’s time to give the specific details. You should describe the specific features in 2 or 3 (sometimes more) paragraphs.

When giving specific features, you have to write exact numbers/percentages and include as much details as you can.

When you have two countries (or two cities or any other two things depicted on the graph), the simplest way of grouping data – is to describe each country’s trend in a separate paragraph.

Final tips on describing a bar graph

• Avoid listing every single data point by grouping the data together.

• When analyzing a bar-chart, we cannot always give exact details (due to inaccuracies of the chart), so use words around, about and approximately when giving inexact data.

• Give data for each year shown on the chart.

• After you have successfully written out your description with all of the information you wanted to include, go over it and replace some simpler words into more academic ones – this will get you more marks. For example, change “big” to “the most significant”.
• Check that the whole text is free of errors and mistakes.
• Practice with different bar charts to improve.
• Review the superlatives -these are essential if you want to effectively describe the chart.
• The fastest way to improve is to get feedback on your work.