IELTS Writing Graph Tips: The Six That Survive the Band Descriptors, and Four That Do Not

The most common piece of graph advice on the internet is to include as much data as you can. The published band descriptors say the opposite. At band 5, Task Achievement describes an answer that "recounts detail mechanically with no clear overview", and notes "a tendency to focus on details". At band 6 the same criterion wants an answer that "presents an overview with information appropriately selected".

So the tip that most candidates follow most carefully is a description of a band 5 answer. This page keeps only the tips that map onto a descriptor bullet, and names the four that do not.

What is actually being marked

Task 1 is marked on four criteria of equal weight. For Academic Task 1 they are Task Achievement (did you cover the task and give an overview), Coherence and Cohesion (is it organised and connected), Lexical Resource (vocabulary), and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. The band score table post sets out how the four combine into the number you receive.

That split matters for tips, because a tip is only worth following if you can name the criterion it moves. Most tip lists cannot. The six below can.

Tip 1: Write the overview in the second position

An overview is one or two sentences stating the largest general pattern, with no individual figures in it. It goes straight after your opening sentence, not at the end.

For a line graph showing the percentage of households with internet access in three countries between 2000 and 2020:

Overall, household internet access rose in all three countries over the twenty year period, with the steepest increase in Vietnam and the smallest in Japan, which already started from a high level.

No numbers. A direction, a scope, and the two ends of the range. The descriptor bullet it answers is the band 7 one, "presents a clear overview of main trends, differences or stages". Put it last and you are relying on the reader to find it, which is also the position where candidates write a conclusion instead. If you tend to do that, whether Task 1 needs a conclusion works through what the duplicate costs you.

Tip 2: Select, do not transcribe

This is the tip that replaces the bad one at the top of this page. You are not being asked to convert the graph into sentences. You are being asked to say what it shows.

A twenty year line graph with three lines has sixty or more readable values. A 170 word answer cannot carry sixty values, and an answer that tries reads as a list. Choose:

• the start value and the end value for each line,
• the single largest change,
• the point where two lines cross or meet,
• anything that breaks the pattern, such as one country falling while two rise.

That is roughly eight to ten figures, which is what fits. The post on which numbers to include and which to leave out works through the selection on a real chart.

Tip 3: Group before you write a word

Spend one minute deciding which things belong together, then let the grouping decide your paragraphs. Two body paragraphs is the normal answer.

For the internet access graph, the grouping is obvious once you look for it: two countries that started low and rose steeply, one that started high and rose gently. So paragraph one takes the two steep risers together, and paragraph two takes the outlier. Grouping is also what prevents the country by country list, which is the most common shape of a band 5 or 6 answer.

The descriptor bullet is the band 7 Coherence and Cohesion one: "logically organises information and ideas; there is clear progression throughout". Grouping is how the progression gets there.

Tip 4: Make every number do a comparison

A figure on its own is data. A figure next to another figure is a comparison, and comparison is what the task asks for.

The right hand column is not longer by much, and it carries the same figures. The difference is that each sentence states a relationship. That is the band 7 Task Achievement bullet, "clearly presents and highlights key features", doing its work.

Tip 5: Let the dates choose the tense

Read the axis labels, not the question. Dates in the past mean past tenses. A graph with no dates, or dates in the future, changes the answer. This gets its own post because candidates reliably get it wrong in a specific way: which tense for Task 1 covers the cases, including projections.

Tense is a Grammatical Range and Accuracy matter, and it is the cheapest marks on the page. A consistent tense across 170 words takes no extra skill, only one decision made before you start.

Tip 6: Approximate on purpose

You are reading values off a printed graph, so you cannot be exact, and pretending to be exact is a small accuracy risk for no gain. Write just under 40 percent, approximately one in five, a little over half. Hedging language of this kind is also the clearest cheap signal of Lexical Resource range in a Task 1 answer, and the band 7 bullet asks for "less common lexical items with some awareness of style and collocation".

There is a limit. Approximate the reading, never the trend. Rose slightly when the line doubles is not hedging, it is wrong.

The four tips that do not survive the descriptors

"Learn twenty synonyms for increase." A list of synonyms produces sentences that reach for the next word on the list rather than the right one. Skyrocketed on a two percent rise is a word choice error, which is the thing the Lexical Resource bullets actually penalise. Two or three accurate verbs used correctly beats twenty used approximately. The vocabulary post makes the case on real sentences.

"Memorise an introduction template." The introduction is one sentence paraphrasing the question. A memorised frame is recognisable to a reader who marks hundreds of these, and copied or memorised wording is not credited as your writing. Paraphrase the question in front of you instead.

"Open every sentence with a linking word." Cohesion is marked on whether the answer holds together, not on how many connectives appear. The band 6 bullet describes devices used "effectively, but cohesion within and/or between sentences may be faulty or mechanical". A paragraph where every sentence starts Moreover or In addition is the mechanical case, and it is a ceiling, not a boost.

"Describe each line in order, left to right." This is the country by country list again. It feels complete and it produces no comparison. Group instead, as in tip 3.

One graph, two answers

The difference between the two shapes below is not vocabulary. Both are grammatically clean. Only the selection changes.

Listing shape. The graph shows internet access in three countries. In 2000, Vietnam had 5 percent, India had 3 percent and Japan had 38 percent. In 2005, Vietnam had 13 percent, India had 7 percent and Japan had 57 percent. In 2010, Vietnam had 31 percent, India had 16 percent and Japan had 78 percent.

Selecting shape. The graph shows the percentage of households with internet access in three countries from 2000 to 2020. Overall, access rose everywhere, but the two countries that began lowest rose fastest, and the gap between them and Japan had nearly closed by the end of the period. Vietnam and India both started under 6 percent in 2000; by 2020 they had reached 82 and 74 percent respectively. Japan, already at 38 percent in 2000, finished highest at 91 percent, but its increase was the smallest of the three.

The listing shape has more figures in it. It has no overview, no grouping and no comparison, and it has not finished the task yet, with a third of the words gone. Our line graph sample answer post compares four overview sentences for the same chart and explains the reasoning behind each, and the line graph samples library holds complete answers with each of the four criteria estimated separately.

Do this today

Find any Task 1 answer you have written and run three checks on it.

1. Count the figures. If there are more than twelve in 170 words, you are transcribing. Cut to the start, the end, the biggest change and the crossing point.
2. Read your second sentence. Does it state the main pattern with no individual numbers in it? If not, write that sentence and put it there.
3. Count sentences that contain two numbers or a word like compared with, against, twice, whereas. If the answer is zero, you have described and not compared.

Then put the original and the edited version through Bandly and look at which of the four criteria moves. The output is a model estimate rather than a mark from a qualified examiner, so read it as a second opinion; what is useful is the direction of the change, and the sentences it points at.