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Your 20 Minute Academic Task 1 Crash Course
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you are now listening to the I podcast
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learn from tutors and ex- examiners who
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are masters of eye outs preparation your
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host Ben
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Worthington your 20 minute academic ILS
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task one crash course hi there my name
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is Ben Worthington and in this tutorial
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we are going to go over at a high level
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the skills you need and how to get them
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for your iarts academic task one
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describe a graph describe a b chat
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describe a natural process describe a
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table describe a map all of these um
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Graphics that we have to describe in our
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academic task one
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report the outline for this tutorial was
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basically me having a glance at our
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academic task one course and looking at
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all the contents in that course and I
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was right and I was thinking right I can
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talk about that for a few minutes that
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for a few minutes so it's a very
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complete high level very practical as
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always tutorial to get you up and
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running with I academic task one now
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this is completely free if you do get
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some value from from this I'm asking you
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a small favor in return because it's
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completely free and you get some value
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from it if you did get some value from
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it sorry please just share it with a
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friend post it on the socials email it
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to a friend whatever it just helps us
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help more people so you're probably
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aware of what you need to be doing you
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need to be describing visual data graphs
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charts tables and what
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not so I'm going to blast through this
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very
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quickly grab a pen it's going to be
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incredibly valuable you need to
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understand the
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data and this isn't just identifying the
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key trends the differences the overall
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patterns but it's also looking at the
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units making sure you don't get
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millimeters confused with um liters or
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or
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kilometers fused with meters just
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looking at the
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units one tutor once told me a good
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method and it's basically to step back
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squint your eyes and then you get a
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blurred overview and then those are the
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sort of like the Blurred Parts the the
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bits that stick out those are the ones
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you're going to be talking about for the
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main sort of like key
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trends structure your response you can
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start with an introduction that
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paraphrases the test description
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followed by an overview it's important
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we get the overview probably in the
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second
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sentence I used to teach my students to
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put the Overview at the end but Ellen
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our exils examiner she came up with a
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better way which was putting it in the
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second sentence this way you get it out
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of the way and there's no chance of you
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forgetting it forgetting to include it
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which would cost you
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points next one use appropriate
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vocabulary we're going to go into this
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in more detail in a second but it goes
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back to what I was saying about not only
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using the correct units but also are you
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using language of change when it's a bar
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chat uh sorry when it's a pie chat are
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you using fractions and proportions for
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the pie chat are you
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using the correct tense when you're
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comparing two different time frames all
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of this is important now then let's go
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into looking at choosing what to write
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about this is probably one of the most
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frequent challenges student stud face
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when they are doing academic task one
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especially the student who is doing
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international relations or
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studying history or geography or
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something like that and they don't
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really get that much exposure to graphs
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and charts as compared to say an
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engineering student or maybe even a
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medical
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student so you really need to brush up
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on on your charts the I think the best
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examples of this are at the
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economist.com I think it's called daily
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chart just put it into Google and you'll
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see every day they're just looking at a
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different chart and it's like whereas in
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this month it was 20,000 barrels of oil
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in this month it was 30 uh barrels of of
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oil and then it grew to 60 barrels of
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oil and so on and so forth but the
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economist The Economist
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sorry is one of the best resources I've
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ever seen for this so let's have a look
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at a quick practical road map we
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identify the key points this forces you
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or you can do it the other way around
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but you need to include the superlative
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because if you include the superlative
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the maximums and the minimums then you
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are going to you know use another
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grammar structure which will help you
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with the grammatical range and accuracy
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criteria so the highest point on the
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chart is the largest section of the of
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the pie chart is the lowest point of the
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chart or the lowest amount of sales is
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and so on and so forth or the highest
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point of growth is or the highest rate
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of change was between 2014 and
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2025 for
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example next point we want to prioritize
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Clarity okay so Clarity is lost when we
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are going through the gra through the
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chart in a list Style in 1999 it was 30%
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in in sorry in 1999 it was 30 in 20 in
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2000 it was 31 in 2003 it was 34 and so
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on and so forth this is just not
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clear a
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good um a good way around this is to
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group the data this is a key skill to
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group the data so we're grouping maybe
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the smallest ones then the largest ones
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the next one um consider your audience
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in this case obviously it's the I
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examiner so this means we want to
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present our ideas logically and
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coherently now a good tip here is when
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we've got a chronological chart which
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starts at say like let's say the year
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2000 and finishes in
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2024 it would be bizarre to start off at
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2010 and then
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mention 2005 and then go back to 2024
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for example obviously it would be 10
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times more logical just to work through
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the graph uh chronologically given an
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overview and then maybe group sort of
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like the lowest points in the chart were
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2010 2012 and
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2015 and the highest points were XY Z
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and then in this way although it might
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go against what I just said about
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chronologically going through the data
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we've still grouped the data but we did
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acknowledge the chronological aspect of
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the of the chat in the previous sentence
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and now we're going into more detail by
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just grouping it together to get a
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better
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overview sentence
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structures now in the chat in the C we
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give you uh quite a comprehensive list
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of the different sentence structures you
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need and how to include them in your
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framework how to include them in the
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framework that we give you to just speed
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up the whole entire writing process so
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some of these sentences include simple
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sentences which might seem a bit bizarre
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but we all know it's variance the
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variety of sentence structures we need
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short medium and long sentences this
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makes it interesting to read if it's all
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long
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sentences and it's not grammatically
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perfect and even if it is grammatically
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perfect it still feels like you've got a
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big pair of Wellies on and you're going
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through a very muddy field and you're
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just trying to make progress whereas we
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make if
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we put that Variety in there then we're
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kind of just like gliding through like a
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sailboat in the America's Cup just
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cruising through and it just makes it
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that little bit uh more
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stylistically appealing a stylistically
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um better read and then we can mix in
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with those long sentences compound
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sentences and complex sentences just to
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add that depth also we want to use
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complex structures possibly the
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conditionals definitely the passive
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constructions if we're using passive
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constructions now the focus is on the
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process rather than the actual Doer
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and some academic writing or some
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authors of academic writing absolutely
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hate the passive construction because
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sometimes it's not clear whereas with
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the IELTS You could argue it's not clear
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however this is IELTS we want to use a
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range of structures to get that band
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seven or higher and the passive is going
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to help us here especially for a natural
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process or a process chart where we're
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describing maybe I don't know the
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extraction of oil the process there or
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recycling or the water cycle whichever
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process is in front of us using the
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passive construction uh using the
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passive structure will help us now again
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and I say this for the students of I
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writing task 2 as
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well what you want to do is get feedback
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get feedback on your work figure out the
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top errors the most common errors that
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you are consistently making then you
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make an error list then the next time
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you write an academic task one you check
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it for specific mistakes you know you
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have
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made in previous essay writing and this
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just speeds up the whole process it
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laser focuses your um it laser
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focuses uh your time uh so it's
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basically quicker to spot the mistakes
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instead of just going through and
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sentence by sentence looking for every
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grammatical mistake that you are aware
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of you just look for the ones that you
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consistently make
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and you fig and you uh fix them and this
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way the the essay sorry the examiner is
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not going to have to correct your
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work right then some other useful
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valuable techniques to describe data we
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need to compare and contrast and a great
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um way to do this is use whereas while
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while in 20 in while in 2012 production
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was at an alltime low in 2019 it's
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skyrocketed to the maximum across the
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whole time period reaching 20,000 units
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a day okay whereas while also for Trends
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we need the language of change
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increasing dramatically skyrocketed to
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fell dramatically to now what I see a
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lot of students do is using this
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vocabulary for a pie
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chart and this is the equivalent of a
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train crash because we've used the wrong
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vocabulary so if we say it see a dynamic
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chart where it's moving up and down over
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a period of time then we can use
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increasing dramatically falling um or
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plummeting uh quickly or whatever we can
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use this language of change where if
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it's a b a bar chart a pie chart we
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probably won't need to use them
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definitely not in a pie chart quantify
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the
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changes okay quantify the changes it
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fell by 2,000 barrels it fell by 20
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units it increased by 30% it increased
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by roughly 40% it almost doubled it's
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three times that of the previous year
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all of these structures are incredibly
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useful because they increase the variety
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and they help us move towards that goal
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of giving an overall picture and it's
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easier to understand if you say
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production was at 20,000 and then it
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increased and reached 880,000 that's
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okay but if I said it increased four
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times to reach or it
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quadrupled to reach 80,000 the following
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year that's far a far richer idea a far
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richer description cohesion and
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coherence so we need to link these ideas
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and Link it all so this is what I was
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saying before about grouping so we group
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the smallest ones we group the largest
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ones and then we say and then in the
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following year okay uh we use
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connectors lexical
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resource again this is what I was saying
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before you know using the different
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structures increased by three triple
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that of the previous years it just helps
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you avoid the repetition and it helps
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you avoid going through that horrible
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process of listing every data point and
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boring The Examiner to death okay task
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achievement make sure that you've
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mentioned most of the data points you
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don't have to list them but the ones
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that you haven't uh included make sure
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that that they're at least in a group
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you know the smallest three
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were geography PE and history with 3 3%
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5% and 8%
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respectively what tenses do we use again
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all of these points that I'm mentioning
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sentence structures variety all of the
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these are all modules in the course so
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this is just a high level view so what
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tenses do we use past tense for
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describing completed actions or past
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events we use the present tense when the
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charts um when it's showing current data
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or habitual actions we use the future
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tense obviously when the chart shows a
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forecast I've see a lot of essays um a
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lot of reports and the chart shows 2030
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and the students still writing in the
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present tense and we should be using
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tenses like whereas in 2030 it is
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predicted to rise to 80 kg and then it
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should then it will fall back down to 50
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by the year
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2035
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okay what exercises can you do to
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improve your
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writing one of my favorites would be
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going to especially for a self-study
15:27
student one of my favorites would be to
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go to The Economist daily chat as I
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mentioned at the beginning and copy pen
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and paper look what's on the screen copy
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pen and paper write it out analyze it um
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check it if there's new structures in
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there try playing with those structures
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and then when you get better you can
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look at a sentence cover it up and try
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write it from memory do about three or
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four of these every single day and
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within a week two weeks you will see a
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vast Improvement in your
16:03
writing next Point get some feedback you
16:06
can use our AI essay checking tool to
16:09
get some feedback it'll look at the
16:10
structure the grammar it'll give you an
16:12
estimated score it's completely free if
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you if you need to improve faster then
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you can upgrade get the premium
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one and that will help that will help
16:21
you improve faster because it's looking
16:23
at more data points it instead of taking
16:26
maybe 10 seconds it takes 30 seconds for
16:28
you to to get your feedback uh so it
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takes a little bit longer but the amount
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of detail in that extended feedback is
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far more
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valuable also just make a note and log
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your improvements and your errors as I
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said before now traditionally teachers
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when they look at your
16:49
work most of the good parts go unnoticed
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this is the failure of the tutor because
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the teach the tutor might be a native
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English speaker they wouldn't it's not
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going to stand out to them that you did
17:03
it
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perfectly and they will probably ignore
17:06
it and they'll just focus in on all the
17:10
errors and that's why it's so
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disheartening with standard Corrections
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when you get your work back and it's
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just full of red ink and this is wrong I
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don't understand and question marks and
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all all of this and all the beautiful
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features all the advanced features that
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you did correctly go completely un
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noticed and it's so rotten it's so
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rotten this is why when I do my essay
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Corrections I'm I always start with
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praising the student well done for
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taking action a lot of students never
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even write an essay oh this structure is
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amazing and you should do the same with
17:45
your own essay correction you know
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you're reviewing it and you're like ah
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well done well done Ben you used a a
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comp a comparison there you know so I
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used to say to my students just make a
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list of all the errors but nowadays I
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say
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um well early on I realized when I was
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getting feedback on writing I was doing
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I was like you just ripped me to shreds
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and I feel terrible now I would never do
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this when I'm teaching uh
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so what I'm saying is if in when you're
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getting the feedback and you see oh I
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did this well I did this well write it
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down because then you're more likely to
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do it again now the final part is kind
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of already covered it I'm just going to
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go into a little bit more detail now is
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graph vocabulary for part
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one okay we need to be familiar with the
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adjectives and the verbs like rise fall
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surge decline grow drop plummet side
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note
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here and I almost made this mistake I
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think earlier on but I remember once at
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a Christmas dinner and my uh a family
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member she said oh it's very EP
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epic and I've learned nowadays not to
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correct family
19:05
members at at family events it doesn't
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go down well but she said very epic and
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this is just an absolute blunder because
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if it's epic it's the Pinnacle it's
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already the maximum so you can't say
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it's the very maximum it did it's not
19:20
accurate and it shows a lack of command
19:24
of the English
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language of course if you're a
19:27
non-native English speaker you can can
19:28
probably get away with it but that that
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higher levels and especially for Native
19:33
L uh English users native language users
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it doesn't sh it doesn't come across as
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that educated so anyway I'm saying this
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because if you're using words like it's
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skyrocketed and then you said it
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absolutely skyrocketed that absolutely
19:51
is a little bit redundant okay or it's
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skyrocketed quickly of course it's going
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to go quickly it's a rocket
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okay so just keep in mind which ones
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need the adverbs and are the
20:06
adjectives next ones stability and
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fluctuation uh remain stable level off
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fluctuated and this one we can modify
20:16
say it fluctuated modestly fluctuated
20:20
wildly because fluctuated all all it
20:22
means it just goes up and down it
20:23
changed so we could add some detail to
20:25
that
20:26
one descriptive adjectives
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significant dramatic sharp moderate
20:32
slight these ones you need to use with
20:34
caution as I just mentioned you can't
20:36
say it's slightly skyrocketed that's
20:38
just absolutely redundant you could say
20:42
um it increased sharply the following
20:46
year and that's a great use of um your
20:50
vocabulary now that's it I promised you
20:53
it was 20 minutes we're now at 20
20:55
minutes 41
20:57
seconds uh and thank you very much for
20:59
listening if you got some value from
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this you you're going to get 10 times
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more value by checking out the course
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and if you are a little bit lost and you
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that's it for me today have a beautiful
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day and good luck with your ielt
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