Overviews for IELTS Writing Task 1 – Australian poverty

By Tony Grace | 28th January 2019 |

In Writing Task 1, identifying the main trends, differences, or stages is a key skill.

Practise with the question below, and then write an overview.

Click on the tabs to see mine.

Write down the main differences Differences Overall,

Write down the main differences

IELTS writing task 1 Australian poverty table

Now write down the main differences before proceeding to the next tab

Differences

Overall,

IELTS writing task 1 Australian poverty table

11% of people were poor
about 1.8 million people were poor
single people were the most likely to be poor
old people were the least likely to be poor

Now write an overview before proceeding to the next tab

Overall, 11% of the population, or over 1.8 million people were poor at this time. Single people, with or without children were the most likely to be poor, while, the elderly were the least likely.

Comments on overviews

You need a clear overview to get a band score 7 for Task Achievement.

Task Achievement, Band score 7

Task 1 Examiners' Criteria Task Achievement

The word stages refers to processes, and in questions with figures you need to think about trends and differences.

If a question has changes over time, like in this one, it's best to mention both trends and differences.

If there are no trends, like in the one about Australian poverty, I would find at least two differences to mention.

Make it easy for the examiner to give you a 7 - use the word overall, and put your overview in a separate paragraph.

The overview is the first thing the examiner looks for, so don't hide it in the introduction or at the end.

Finally, if there's a total or an average, as in the question about literacy or the one about Australian poverty, I would consider it to be the most important information, so I'd include it in the overview.

For more information on Task 1 questions see here.

See my Task 1 model answers here.

See sample marked students' Task 1 answers here.