Academic Task 1 gives you a chart, table, diagram or map and asks you to describe it. You have about 20 minutes and a 150-word minimum, and it is worth a third of your Writing score against Task 2's two thirds — so spend the 20 minutes and not a minute more.
The single most valuable sentence in the whole task is the overview: one or two sentences saying what is true about the data as a whole. Highest and lowest. The overall direction. The thing a reader would notice from across the room. Scripts that describe every number and never stand back are the most common reason a well-written Task 1 stalls.
A structure that works every time:
- One sentence restating what the visual shows, in your own words. Never copy the prompt.
- The overview. Two sentences, no numbers, starting "Overall,".
- Two body paragraphs grouping the detail — biggest and smallest, or first half and second
- half, or the two categories that behave differently. Use figures to support the grouping, not
- to list it.
There is no conclusion, no opinion, and no explanation of why the data looks like this. A Task 1 that speculates about causes is answering a question nobody asked.
On language: the marking rewards accurate comparison, not decoration. Learn a small set of comparison patterns cold — rose sharply, fell steadily, levelled off, almost doubled, roughly a third of — and use them precisely. Ten precise sentences beat twenty ambitious ones.
Finally: write about what the data shows, not what you would like it to show. If a line goes up and then flattens, both halves belong in the sentence.