IELTS guide
Academic Task 1 describes visual information; General Training Task 1 is a letter. Use the official requirements, flexible planning advice and two original, unscored examples below to practise explaining information clearly.
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Prepared with AI assistance and published by English AIdol. No human expert review is claimed.
What this guide covers
Describe visual information in connected sentences. Focus on the important features and support them with relevant details. Use an academic or neutral style.
Reference: IELTS Academic Writing format.
Write a letter responding to a situation. Cover the three bullet points and choose a style suited to the recipient, your relationship and your purpose. An address at the top is not required.
Reference: IELTS General Training Writing format.
Both versions require at least 150 words. IELTS recommends about 20 minutes for Task 1 within a 60-minute Writing test; this is a time allocation, not a separately timed section. Complete both tasks: Task 2 carries twice the weight. Write the submitted response as connected text, not notes or bullet points.
This is one planning option, not a required paragraph order or word allocation. For an Academic response, try the four moves below; combine or divide paragraphs when the information calls for it. IELTS guidance on preparing for Academic Task 1 allows the overview near the beginning or at the end.
Check the population, units, categories and dates. Describe them in your own sentences. Keep accurate labels: changing “table” to “graph” or “number” to “percentage” may introduce an error rather than a useful paraphrase.
Choose the central trends, differences or stages. The overview should give the reader a useful summary before or after the detailed account. A separate paragraph is a convenient option, not an official requirement.
Choose comparisons that explain the main picture. The small table below fits naturally into falling and rising shares; a larger table might need different groups. There is no universal quota of four or six figures.
Match every claim to the visual, check units and tense, and remove causes or opinions the visual does not establish. Leave time to review the wording and finish Task 2.
For a letter, plan the recipient, purpose and information needed for each bullet point. Paragraphs can follow the bullets, but they need not have equal lengths. A clear request to a familiar manager may be semi-formal; job title alone does not decide the tone.
The four equally weighted Task 1 criteria are Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Review relevance and coverage, organisation, appropriate vocabulary, and sentence control together. IELTS scoring in detail.
The IELTS Writing band descriptors (PDF) assess the overview and supporting features for Academic responses, and purpose, coverage and tone for letters. They also include a Band 1 rule for responses of 20 words or fewer, alongside separate Band 0 conditions. Meeting 150 words alone does not establish a band; assess the whole response. Our planning sequence is not an examiner scoring algorithm.
Use “rose”, “fell” or “remained stable” only when the data show change over time. A bar chart can show one year, and a line graph can include forecasts: check labels before choosing tense. With two observations, report the difference without inventing a steady rise or fluctuations between them.
In our example, car travel falls from 40% to 25%. That is a fall of 15 percentage points. Relative to the original 40%, the decrease is 37.5%: (40 − 25) ÷ 40 × 100. These statements describe different measures; keep the unit clear.
Choose tense from the date or stage shown, not from a fixed “before = past, after = present” rule. Two historical maps usually need past reference; a proposed plan may need future or planned language. A process can use active verbs (“water flows”) or passive verbs (“water is filtered”), depending on the meaning. Passive voice is not compulsory.
Use an exact figure when supplied, or an honest approximation when it must be read from a scale. Do not add “dramatically” or “dwarfed” merely to sound advanced. For a letter, a clear opening, relevant details and an appropriate closing matter more than memorising elaborate phrases.
For a separate set of Academic exercises, use the chart, map and process workshop. It includes fictional garden plans and a library workflow to practise selecting and explaining visual features.
These are English AIdol teaching examples. Choose the expression that preserves meaning; no phrase or visual type comes with an automatic band.
AI comments and bands are unofficial estimates and may be wrong. Check the task, the response and the published criteria. Activity and feedback limits depend on the current plan.
Open Writing practiceThe tasks, data and responses below are original English AIdol teaching material prepared with AI assistance. The situations and figures are fictional. No examiner band, official IELTS status or human expert review is claimed. Try writing before opening each response.
The table shows the percentage of employees at a fictional company who used each main way of travelling to work in 2010 and 2020. Describe the main patterns and support your comparisons with relevant figures. Write at least 150 words.
| Mode | 2010 | 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Car | 40% | 25% |
| Bus | 35% | 30% |
| Bicycle | 15% | 25% |
| Walking | 10% | 20% |
Each year totals 100%; each employee is assigned one main mode. The table does not provide employee counts, causes or observations between the two years.
The table compares the percentages of employees at a fictional company who used four main forms of transport to travel to work in 2010 and 2020.
Why this choice: Identifies the population, measure and two years. It does not turn percentages into employee counts.
Overall, cars and buses accounted for smaller shares in 2020, while cycling and walking became more common. Cars were the leading mode at the beginning of the period, but buses ranked first at the end. The four shares were also closer together in the later year.
Why this choice: Groups the changes and identifies the change in the leading mode. This example places the overview near the beginning.
In 2010, 40% of employees travelled mainly by car, compared with 35% by bus. By 2020, these proportions had fallen to 25% and 30%, respectively. The decrease for cars was therefore three times the reduction for buses, at 15 percentage points rather than five.
Why this choice: Reports the original and final values, then compares changes measured in percentage points.
Cycling rose from 15% to 25%, bringing its share level with that of cars in 2020. Walking also increased, from 10% to 20%. Although it remained the least common choice, its share doubled. Together, cycling and walking represented 45% in 2020, compared with 25% in 2010.
Why this choice: Adds a tie, a doubling and a combined share. It avoids inventing reasons for the change.
Read the response paragraphs in sequence; labels and teaching comments are not part of the answer. No band has been assigned.
Draft: “Car use fell by 15% because the company introduced a cycle scheme.”
Revision: “The share travelling by car fell by 15 percentage points, from 40% to 25%.”
The revision corrects the unit and removes a cause absent from the table. A higher-sounding vocabulary choice would not repair either problem.
For a separate fictional company, imagine car, bus, bicycle and walking shares of 35%, 25%, 20% and 20% in 2015, changing to 30%, 20%, 20% and 30% in 2025. Write a two-sentence overview before opening the suggestion.
Walking was the only mode to gain share, while car and bus travel declined and cycling was unchanged. Cars led initially, but cars and walking were joint leaders in the later year.
This is a short transfer exercise, not a complete 150-word response. Other accurate summaries are possible.
You are attending an evening photography course at a local college. Your work schedule has changed, so you cannot attend the current class. Write to the course administrator: describe your course and class; explain the difficulty; ask about a suitable alternative. Write at least 150 words.
Dear Course Administrator, I am writing about the beginners’ photography course that I attend on Tuesday evenings. I enrolled last month and have completed the first three classes. I have enjoyed the practical activities, particularly the session on taking photographs in low light, and I would like to continue studying with the college.
Why this choice: Names the course, current class and reason for writing before developing the problem.
Unfortunately, my employer has changed my working hours for the next two months. I now have to work until eight o’clock every Tuesday, so I will be unable to reach the college before the class finishes. This change takes effect next week.
Why this choice: Explains why the existing arrangement will no longer work, using relevant fictional details.
Could you let me know whether there is a Saturday class at the same level that I could join? If so, I would be grateful for details of the timetable and any additional fee. I can attend either a morning or an afternoon session, and I am happy to complete any work I have missed.
Why this choice: Makes the third bullet actionable by naming an alternative and the information needed.
Thank you for considering my request. Yours faithfully, Alex Morgan
Why this choice: Keeps the courteous tone of a request to an administrator the writer does not know personally.
The fictional name, dates and course details develop the supplied situation. The letter has no examiner-awarded score.
Transfer the tone: Rewrite the request as two sentences to a friend who organises a weekend photography group. Keep the scheduling problem, but replace the institutional request with a natural personal one. This change of audience should affect tone without losing the message.
Official sources checked on . This guide was prepared with AI assistance and is published by English AIdol. No human expert review or IELTS endorsement is claimed. Sources establish exam requirements; the original examples and teaching comments are our material.
For focused paragraph practice, try the IELTS Writing revision workshop. Use the preparation guide to plan review across skills.
Academic Task 1 describes visual information. General Training Task 1 is a letter based on a situation and three bullet points. Both require at least 150 words; IELTS recommends about 20 minutes for Task 1 within the 60-minute Writing test.
The overview summarises the most significant features without listing every figure. It is important for Task Achievement because the published descriptors assess whether key features are clearly presented. It can appear after the introduction or later, provided it is clear.
Write at least 150 words. Leave enough time for Task 2, which carries twice the weight. IELTS does not prescribe an optimal word range. Its published descriptors include a Band 1 rule for responses of 20 words or fewer; assess other responses against the full criteria, rather than assuming one fixed score from length alone.
Four paragraphs are one planning option, not a required formula. Make the overview clear and group the supporting detail logically. Official IELTS guidance allows the overview near the beginning or at the end; it does not require a separate paragraph in one fixed position.
Explain the information in your own sentences instead of copying the prompt. Keep necessary names, units and accurate technical terms. Replacing every word with a synonym can change the meaning; a table is not automatically a graph, and a number is not always a percentage.
Consider the recipient, your relationship and the purpose. A manager may require a formal or semi-formal letter; a friend may call for a personal style. Cover every bullet point clearly. Neither equal paragraph lengths nor one paragraph per bullet is an official requirement.
No. The prompts, fictional data, responses and comments are original English AIdol material prepared with AI assistance. They have not been assessed by an IELTS examiner and are not official IELTS questions. The comments explain choices, not awarded bands.
No. Automated feedback and displayed bands are unofficial practice estimates. Check the comments against your response and the published descriptors, revise a specific weakness and consider qualified human feedback when an important decision depends on readiness.