IELTS Writing Task 1 (Overviews Made Easy)

The most complicated thing about IELTS Writing Task 1 is knowing what information to include in the overview.

By the end of this lesson, you will know how to write an effective overview for any graph and boost your Task Achievement score as a result.

You will learn how to analyse charts, organise categories, and add the appropriate information into your overview.

Without the ability to write an effective overview, you'll never get a high score in IELTS Academic Writing Task 1.

Lesson contents:

The Basics of Overviews

An overview is a general description of a graph that doesn’t contain any specific data.

IELTS.com explains their importance for your Task Achievement score here, and idp has a good description of what they are here.

When you’re analysing an IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 question, there are two simple methods of doing this.

The first method is to organise the categories according to which ones increased and which ones decreased.

The second method is to organise the categories according to which one had the highest figure and which one had the lowest figure.

It’s honestly as easy as that.

The rest of this lesson will show you when to choose each method.

Making Annotations

To help us understand what’s happening in each question, we draw and write on the charts to help us organise the categories.

In this image, you can see the markings that I use when analysing a Task 1 question.

These are the basic annotations I like to use when analysing IELTS Writing Task 1 questions.

If you’re doing the paper-based IELTS test, this is easy. Just write on the question sheet.

However, If you’re doing the computer-based IELTS test, it’s a bit trickier because the computer won’t let you write or draw directly onto the question.

Instead, make a quick sketch on your notepaper and then use the same markings above.

Below is an example of the sketch you could make for the following question.

This is they type of question you'll get in IELTS Writing Task 1.
How to IELTS Writing Task 1: A sketch like this is the only option if you're doing the computer-based IELTS test.

As you can see, my sketch doesn’t include much detail from the question.

I’ve just included enough detail in my sketch to help me organise the categories. I can still look at the question on the computer when I need any other information.

Increases & Decreases in IELTS Writing Task 1

When a chart provides us with data for two or more years, we will generally organise the categories that increased together and the ones that decreased together.

While organising the categories, we are only concerned with the figures in the first year and the last year of the chart.

So for the green line for cars in the question below, we determine that it increased because the figure in 2020 is higher than in 1970.

What happened in the middle isn’t important.

When learning how to write Task 1 IELTS answers, you need to just focus on the first and last year in the chart for your overview.

Similarly, the blue line for walking is considered a decrease, and we ignore what happened in between.

Increases & Decreases: Example A

As you can see in the IELTS Writing Task 1 question below, there is data for 3 years, so I’ve drawn arrows next to each category to show which ones increased and decreased from 1980 to 2020.

Here I've marked which categories increased and which decreased directly onto the IELTS Writing Task 1 question.

Overview

Overall, the weight of broccoli, garlic, pea and ginger imports in Qatar increased, while there was a decrease in the weight of spinach imported.

Comment:

As you can see, the arrows I’ve drawn make it very easy to organise the categories.

By drawing arrows like this, I;

  • can focus on one category at a time when I’m analysing the question.
  • am more confident that I’ve analysed the chart correctly.
  • don’t need to remember which ones increased and which ones decreased.
  • find it easier to group the categories.

Increases & Decreases: Example B

Like before, this IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 question has data for more than one year, so I’ve drawn arrows to indicate which categories increased and which ones decreased.

It doesn't matter what type of graph you get in the IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 test, you still just add the same annotations to help you organise what's happening with the different categories.

Overview

Overall, there was an increase in the percentage of people who ate vegetarian meals once a month and several times a year, whereas all other categories saw a decrease.

Comment:

As you can see, we don’t need to include the name of every category in our overview.

By using the phrase ‘all other categories‘ like this, we only needed to write down the name of two categories.

For IELTS Writing Task 1, as long as we’re indicating what the trends were in the overview, that’s enough.

Descriptions like this are beneficial when there are many categories in the chart or when the names of the categories are long.

Increases & Decreases: Example C

Once more, I’ve added arrows to help me decide what to put in my overview.

How to IELTS Writing Task 1: There is no need to put arrows in 2004 as you just need to explain what the changes were.

Overview

Overall, there was an increase in the total amount of money budgeted for the various militaries, and the only two countries that reduced the size of their budget were the United Kingdom and Italy.

Comment:

When there is a total in the chart like the question above, we have to treat this separately from the other categories.

If I had just said that all the categories increased except for the United Kingdom and Italy, that wouldn’t have been enough information in my overview.

Increases & Decreases: Example D

This chart is quite overwhelming at first, but when we look at one category at a time and draw arrows, it quickly becomes manageable.

When learning how to write Task 1 IELTS overviews, adding appropriate annotations is the first step.

Overview

Overall, the average distances travelled by cycling and walking had decreased by the end of the period, whereas there was an increase in the figures for buses, cars and taxis. Meanwhile, there were slight fluctuations in the average trip length on trains throughout the period.

Comment:

Up until now, I’ve told you to only focus on the first and last year in the chart for your overviews in IELTS Academic Writing Task 1.

However, when there is a stable trend or fluctuations like for trains above, you need to refer to the whole time period.

If you’re not comfortable doing that, you can say that trains increased instead.

Increases & Decreases with Predictions

If there are predictions in the chart, you have to keep your description of these separate from the descriptions of the past.

Firstly, you need to determine if each category increased or decreased in the past.

Secondly, you need to determine if each category is predicted to increase or decrease.

Increases & Decreases with Predictions: Example A

Here, I’ve drawn one set of arrows for the year 2000 to indicate the trends in the past and another set for 2050 to organise the predictions.

When you're deciding how to write Task 1 IELTS overviews, make sure to check if there are predictions.

Overview

Overall, from 1950 to 2000, the total number of people and the percentages of 20-64-year-olds and over 65s all increased; however, there was a reduction in the figure for the youngest age group. The same trends are predicted for 2050, with the only decrease being seen in the category of 0-19-year-olds.

Comment:

As you can see, predictions must be described separately, but besides that, we categorise them in the same way as any other IELTS Writing Task 1 question.

Increases & Decreases with Predictions: Example B

This time, I put two arrows next to each category.

The one on the left represents the past, and the one on the right represents the predictions.

IELTS Writing Task 1 questions like this require you to separate the past from the predictions.

Overview

Overall, there was an increase in the popularity of TV and movies and woodwork, while there was a decrease in baking and gardening. Meanwhile, figures for painting have remained relatively stable. The predictions show that the numbers for TV and movies is expected to continue increasing, whereas woodwork, baking and gardening are all forecast to decline. As before, painting’s popularity is projected to fluctuate slightly.

Comment:

This overview is longer than average, but there was no choice with the number of category groupings.

There was one group for;

  • increases in the past
  • decreases in the past
  • stable trends in the past
  • predicted increases
  • predicted decreases
  • predicted stable trends

Highest & Lowest in IELTS Writing Task 1

When the data in the chart is for just one year, we obviously won’t find any increases or decreases.

This time, we need to look for the highest and lowest figures.

I write the letters ‘H‘ and ‘L‘ on the question to help me organise these categories for my overview.

Highest & Lowest: Example A

So as you can see, I’ve put a ‘H‘ next to the highest category for each country and an ‘L‘ next to the lowest in this IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 question.

How to IELTS Writing Task 1: using the letters H and L on your question sheet like this makes it very easy to assess the key features in the chart.

Oman had two categories that shared the same lowest figure, which is why I needed to write ‘L‘ three times on this question.

Overview

Overall, in Qatar, spinach imports accounted for the most weight, whereas peas accounted for the least. In contrast, garlic had the highest figure for Oman, while broccoli and ginger shared the lowest number for this country.

Comment:

As you can see, once you know to look for the highest and lowest figures, overviews aren’t that complicated.

Highest & Lowest: Example B

Like the previous IELTS Writing Task 1 question, this one has data for just one year, so I know to look for the highest and lowest figures.

Here's another IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 question where all the data is based in just one year.

Overview

Overall, rice had been eaten by the highest percentage of people in every country except Madagascar, where bread was most consumed. Potatoes, on the other hand, had the lowest percentage in all the countries.

Comment:

Here you can see that we have used the highest and lowest figures to group our categories for the overview.

This is the same thing we did with the categories that increased and decreased earlier in this lesson.

Highest & Lowest: Example C

This time, I’ve used the letter ‘O‘ for ‘oldest’ and ‘N‘ for newest because it’s clearer for me this way.

Overview

Overall, the national airline of the Philippines is the oldest, flies to the most destinations and has the biggest fleet size. On the other hand, the Nigerian national airline is the newest, while Malta’s has the fewest destinations, and Nepal is the country whose airline has the smallest fleet.

Comment:

Even though we are looking for the highest and lowest figures in the chart, that doesn’t mean that the words ‘highest’ and ‘lowest’ are always suitable for our IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 answer.

For example, in this question, we needed to say ‘oldest’, ‘newest’, ‘most’, ‘least’, ‘biggest’ and ‘smallest’.

Make sure that you adapt your language to suit the information you’re describing.

Highest & Lowest: Example D

Once more, I’ve marked all the highest and lowest categories in this graph.

Deciding how to write Task 1 IELTS overviews for questions like this one is easy. Simply look at each country, one at a time.

Overview

Overall, football has the highest percentage of fans in all the countries except Saudi Arabia and Sri Lanka, where basketball is the most popular. Of the three sports, cricket is the least popular in Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates, while basketball is the least popular in the other countries.

Comment:

Some IELTS students get confused with questions like this.

They try to find the highest figure for football, the highest for cricket and the highest for basketball.

They note that football has the highest figure of 88% in Turkey, cricket has 19% in Seychelles, and basketball has 53% in Sri Lanka.

However, this chart is organised around each country rather than each sport.

That’s how we know to find the highest and lowest categories for each country.

If it was organised around each sport, it would look like this.

The way the information is organised in the IELTS Writing Task 1 question will indicate how to analyse it.

Highest & Lowest: Example E

As there are only two categories, I didn’t need to use the ‘L‘ in this IELTS Writing Task 1 question.

How to IELTS Writing Task 1: A question like this showing different grades or different age groups is often misinterpreted by IELTS candidates as containing data for more than one year.

Overview

Overall, the boys in grade 7 were the only male students to outperform their female counterparts in mathematics.

Comment:

A lot of IELTS candidates get confused by questions like this.

They feel that the different grades in the graph mean that they’re looking at data for more than one year.

However, this graph represents different groups of children doing different tests during one year.

Highest & Lowest with Predictions

When an IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 question has predictions, you will typically organise the categories according to which ones increased and which ones decreased.

On rare occasions, however, you will need to organise them according to highest and lowest.

Highest & Lowest with Predictions: Example A

As you can see, I’ve added the normal letters to organise the categories.

A question like this one is rare in the IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 test because predictions are more likely to be found in a bar chart or a line graph.

Overview

Overall, in 2000, most of the new jobs in the US were in real estate, and the fewest were in IT. In Uzbekistan, IT created the most, and healthcare had the fewest. In 2040, both countries expect IT to create the highest number of new jobs, whereas the lowest is forecast to be in real estate for the US and healthcare in Uzbekistan.

Comment:

This one is a bit confusing because when we first look at it, we see two years, so we feel that we should organise the categories according to which ones increased and which ones decreased.

However, because the second year is a prediction, we had to look at the data from 2020 and the data from 2040 separately.

This means that we only had one year to look at each time and organising from highest to lowest was the way to do it.

Multiple Chart Types in IELTS Writing Task 1

Sometimes, an IELTS Writing Task 1 question features two different chart types and typically, each one shows different sets of data.

As we cannot compare different sets of data, we must deal with each chart separately.

First, we analyse them separately, and then we discuss them separately in the overview.

Multiple Chart Types: Example A

In the question below, the data in the pie chart is unrelated to the data in the table.

This means that we will analyse and discuss them independently.

This is an IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 question with two different chart types.

Overview

Overall, once finished high school, most Kenyan people study in tertiary education, and the most common qualification upon completion of tertiary education is either a diploma or a degree for those aged 18 to 28, a diploma for students from 29 to 39 years old and a masters degree for the ones over 40 years of age.

Comment:

You may have noticed that I didn’t include the lowest figures from the pie chart or the table in my overview.

It’s unnecessary to include everything and how much you include depends on how much data there is.

If there is less data, we can include the highest and lowest figures. When there is a lot of data, we can just include the highest.

This applies to all IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 questions, not just when there are multiple chart types.

Multiple Chart Types: Example B

Again, I’ve looked at the table and pie chart independently and marked them with arrows accordingly.

How to IELTS Writing Task 1: Both of these charts had increases and decreases but that won't necessarily be the case in your IELTS test.

Overview

Overall, the number of students in the school increased as did the percentage of students who chose basketball or football as their favourite sport. In contrast, the figures for students who prefer tennis or swimming decreased, while the same proportion of students like rugby best.

Comment:

In questions like this, don’t assume that both graphs will be organised in the same way.

You might get a question where one graph is organised according to increases, and decreases and the other is organised according to highest and lowest.

Make sure to always look carefully.

Short Overview Solutions in IELTS Writing Task 1

You may have noticed that there were two short overviews in the examples above.

Short overviews like this can prevent us from getting a high score, so we need a solution.

Solution #1

We can include adverbs and adjectives in our overview to make it more descriptive.

I have already outlined all these words in my IELTS Writing Task 1 Vocabulary Lesson.

Solution #2

Look for other key features to include in the overview.

For example, if you already organised the categories according to which ones increased and which ones decreased, you might find that one category was the highest/the lowest in every year and could include that.

Short Overview Solutions: Example A

This is the question from the ‘Increases and Decreases: Example A‘ at the start of this lesson.

You can see that the arrows I initially added are still there, but now I’ve also marked the highest figure for each year.

If you're overview isn't detailed enough, your Task Achievement score for IELTS Writing Task 1 won't be higher than band 6.

Original Overview

Overall, the weight of broccoli, garlic, pea and ginger imports in Qatar increased, while there was a decrease in the weight of spinach imported.

Overview with Solution #1

Overall, the weight of broccoli and garlic imports in Qatar increased significantly, while pea and ginger imports had a slight rise. In contrast, there was a considerable decrease in the weight of spinach imported.

Comment:

There is one common mistake that IELTS candidates make when doing this.

They apply an adverb/adjective to a group of categories when it only applies to some categories.

For example, they might say, “The weight of broccoli, garlic, pea and ginger imports in Qatar increased significantly.”

However, pea and ginger imports did not increase significantly, meaning that the description is inaccurate and the candidate won’t get a high Task Achievement score.

Overview with Solution #2

Overall, the weight of broccoli, garlic, pea and ginger imports in Qatar increased, while there was a decrease in the weight of spinach imported. By the end of the period, garlic had replaced ginger as the biggest import.

Comment:

A lot of students are surprised when they see this.

They feel that they shouldn’t discuss the highest and lowest data when organising the categories according to which ones increased and which ones decreased.

However, there is no reason to avoid discussing this information.

Short Overview Solutions: Example B

This is the question we looked at in ‘Highest and Lowest: Example E‘.

The ‘X‘s below indicate which grades the boys and girls got the highest and lowest scores.

Here is another IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 overview that needs some extra information.

Original Overview

Overall, the boys in grade 7 were the only male students to outperform their female counterparts in mathematics.

Overview with Solution #1

Overall, the boys in grade 7 were the only male students to outperform their female counterparts in mathematics, and grade 12 was the only grade where the difference in scores was marginal.

Comment:

I chose to focus on grade 12 here because I felt that the difference in scores was unique, and this made it the easiest to describe.

Overview with Solution #2

Overall, the boys in grade 7 were the only male students to outperform their female counterparts in mathematics. The boys and girls who got the highest scores were in grade 7 and grade 10, respectively.

Comment:

Even though I originally marked the lowest scores on the graphs, I later realised that this was too much information and decided not to include that data.

What now?

Next, I recommend that you go back through this lesson and write your own overview for each of the IELTS Writing Task 1 questions.

Once you’ve written an overview, compare yours with the example overview to see how you can improve.

If you find studying at home by yourself to be tedious, idp has a suggestion to get your friends involved.

If you’d like my direct feedback on your mistakes, you can join me in the Live Feedback Lessons.

You will also find more overview examples in this video lesson.

Then, as IELTS.org explains here about IELTS Writing Task 1, you need to understand how your answer is scored.

To make sure you correctly understand this, check out my Task Achievement lesson, Coherence and Cohesion lesson, vocabulary lesson and grammar lesson, which are all designed to improve your IELTS Writing Task 1 scores.

Finally, you’ll need to follow the 5 Steps to answer IELTS Writing Task 1 questions and learn how to answer map questions and process questions.