HOW TO DEAL WITH WRITING TASK 1: LINE CHART

By: Ridwan Sa'at

As we know there are two writing tasks in the Writing Section of IELTS exam; namely IELTS Writing Task 1 about charts or statistic data and Writing Task 2 on composing an essay. 

Writing Task 1 aims for a report response on the given visual/chart/statistic data. Due to its task characteristics of which the participant of the test is asked to write a report, an opinion on the response is not necessary or is not allowed. What the participant needs to write is just a report on what can be observed from the visual.  From time to time the visuals of charts have been developed. There is a task of line charts, bar charts, pie charts, diagram, process and some more. 

In this article, the line chart is discussed and a probable sample of question and response is presented.

Question Rubric:

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The line graph below shows changes in the amount and type of fast food consumed by Australian teenagers from 1975 to 2000.

Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words

The most very important thing to do first when dealing with writing task 1 is to understand the question rubric which mostly consists of context of question and its task instruction. Above the chart you see the question rubric. The bold sentence is the context of question and the bold and italic sentence is the instruction.

The context says: The line graph below shows changes in the amount and type of fast food consumed by Australian teenagers from 1975 to 2000. 

How to understand this is that the context says the trend changes of certain food consumption over a period of time. All you have to do with this is paraphrase this context and put it as your first paragraph. 

Suggested paraphrase would be: The line graph illustrates the changes in food consumption by Australian teenagers over a period of 25 years. 

It is also possible to add an overview of the report attached in your first paragraph. An overview is like a summary or a conclusion of a major change in the chart. It is to know that if you already have this overview in as the second part of your introduction paragraph, you do not need to write a conclusion at the end paragraph. However, if the overview is not there, you are suggested to write a conclusion in the last paragraph.

Writing an overview:
You can see from the chart that the blue and the green line show an upright direction, while red line is in falling trend. So these are the general description of what we can clearly see before we look at the details. Now you know that this will be your overview.
Now let's put that in a sentence as an example of an overview for that question:

Generally, the consumption of pizzas and hamburgers by the Australian teenagers increased over the period while the consumption of fish and chips was in the downward trend. 

Now you have done your introductory paragraph, and what will you write for the body paragraph of your report?
First thing first, look at the instruction this time. It says "Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant." This means it is better for you and suggested that you write only the most significant changes in the report, not writing every single change or fluctuation of the trend of each product. 

So, you may write each trend of each product. Let's start with the green one which is hamburgers. It shows us that the first phenomenal increase is between 1975 to 1985. Then it increased slowly before finally leveled off. So you can write:
First of all, the consumption of hamburgers increased significantly up to between 1975 and 1985 reaching its peak at 82 times eaten per year. The trend then moderately increased before finally leveled off in 2000. 

The second trend you may want to write the trend of the blue line which is Pizza. As you can see the change is quite similar to the change happened to hamburgers. So you can write: 

Similarly, the trend of pizza was in the upward trend and  gradually increased from 5 times eaten per year in 1975 to 82 times per year in 1995 before finally leveled off at the same number until the year 2000. 

The description of fish and chips will be the last. With its downward  trend, you may write: 

In contrast,  the trend of fish and chips was in a decreasing trend with some fluctuations although fish and chips was the most favorite food by Australian teenagers in 1975 . First it fell to 82 times eaten per year in 1982. The trend rebounded then to 90 times eaten per year in 1985. From then it fell significantly to only 39 times eaten per year in the year 2000.

So to recap here's the complete response to the line chart question: 


The line graph illustrates the changes in food consumption by Australian teenagers over a period of 25 years. Generally, the consumption of pizzas and hamburgers by the Australian teenagers increased over the period while the consumption of fish and chips was in the downward trend. 

 First of all, the consumption of hamburgers increased significantly up to between 1975 and 1985 reaching its peak at 82 times eaten per year. The trend then moderately increased before finally leveled off in 2000. 

Similarly, the trend of pizza was in the upward trend and  gradually increased from 5 times eaten per year in 1975 to 82 times per year in 1995 before finally leveled off at the same number until the year 2000. 

In contrast,  the trend of fish and chips was in a decreasing trend with some fluctuations although fish and chips was the most favorite food by Australian teenagers in 1975 . First it fell to 82 times eaten per year in 1982. The trend rebounded then to 90 times eaten per year in 1985. From then it fell significantly to only 39 times eaten per year in the year 2000.
(190 words)

I hope this sample of line chart response can help and give you an overview of how to handle such question. Happy learning and till we talk again in dealing with bar chart