An IELTS Task 1 map prompt shows a place from above, at two or three dates or once with no dates at all, and asks for a 150-word report in 20 minutes. There are two map question types, not one, and most guides teach only the first. A time-invariant map shows one undated place, and […]

General Training Task 1 gives you a situation, a person to write to and three bullet points, and asks for a letter of at least 150 words in about 20 minutes. Candidates arrive asking how many letter styles exist, and the guides answer two, three or five. The count is the wrong question. What the […]

IELTS Writing Task 1 opens the 60-minute Writing test and asks you to report information in your own words. Which information depends on your paper. IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 gives you a visual; IELTS General Training Writing Task 1 gives you a situation to answer by letter. Both share a 150-word minimum and a […]

IELTS Task 1 vocabulary is a small closed set: the words for what moved, in which direction, by how much and when, plus the language for how big a share something is. Roughly forty items in total. Every guide tells you to alternate a trend verb with its noun to show range. Almost none states […]

The dates on the chart choose your IELTS writing tenses. That is the date rule, and it settles Task 1 before you write a word. Past dates take the past simple, future dates take a future form, and a chart with no dates takes the present simple. No test owner has ever published a tense […]

A job application letter is a General Training Task 1 prompt that gives you a job, a person to write to and three points to cover, and asks for at least 150 words. It is the most predictable letter in the exam, and no page says so. Read enough real prompts and the bullet triad […]

A table prompt gives you raw numbers in rows and columns, and asks for a 150-word report that selects and compares the main features. It punishes you twice, and almost every guide warns about only one. Report too many numbers and you lose marks for getting lost in detail. Leave a category out and you […]

A bar chart prompt gives you quantities as bars and asks for a 150-word report that selects the main features and compares them. The decision that shapes the whole answer is not vocabulary. It is the grouping decision: which bars go in paragraph one and which go in paragraph two. That choice is genuinely open […]

A pie chart prompt shows how a whole divides into parts and asks for a 150-word report that selects and compares the main proportions. The segments add up to one whole, so a rise in one share has to be paid for by a fall somewhere else. That part-to-whole relationship is what licenses proportion language, […]

A process chart prompt shows how something is made, recycled or naturally transformed through a numbered stage sequence, and asks for a 150-word report describing that sequence in order. Before anything else, decide whether it is a linear process or a cyclical process. That one answer sets your overview, your last sentence, and whether the […]

A multiple chart question hands you two visuals in one prompt, most often a table beside a chart, and still asks for one report of at least 150 words. Before writing, settle the decision the answer turns on: must you compare them, or may you describe them separately? The rubric asks for comparisons where relevant, […]

Eleven to fourteen minutes, three parts, one examiner. The IELTS Speaking test is a recorded conversation in three parts, and four marking criteria turn it into a band score from 1 to 9. The marking section here crosses the two lists that every other page keeps apart: which criterion each part decides. This page covers […]