The secret to writing a good introduction for Task 1

Your introduction to Writing Task 1 is actually not very important in itself. By that I mean it is unlikely play a major role in helping you achieve a score of 7 or higher. However, if you do it badly, it could be a significant factor in preventing you from achieving a 7.

A badly written introduction is usually one that simply copies the prompt and then makes a few, often inappropriate, substitutions. Consider this example from IELTS 8, Test 4. The description given in the prompt says:

The graph below shows the quantities of goods transported in the UK between 1974 and 2002 by four different modes of transport

Typically, candidates try to paraphrase this by substituting some of the words. For example:

The chart below shows the numbers of products transported in the UK between 1974 and 2002 by four different types of vehicle.

Not only is the sentence structure exactly the same, but 'numbers of products' doesn't mean the same thing as 'quantities of goods'. Nor is 'type of vehicle' an appropriate substitute for 'mode of transport' (since one of the modes in the chart is 'pipeline', which is not a vehicle). It's a poor introduction and immediately signals to the examiner that you are a poor writer. Of course, you should NEVER copy the prompt directly. If you do, it will be ignored by the examiner, which not only means that your response will lack an introduction, but the words will not be considered as part of your total wordcount, and you risk being penalized for an underlength response. Lots of teachers advise candidates to adopt this 'paraphrase the prompt' approach. But it's actually quite hard to apply it to produce an introduction that doesn't look like a 'copy-and-substitite' job. Here is a much better way. DON'T LOOK AT THE DESCRIPTION IN THE PROMPT. Fold your question paper so that you can't see it, or cover it with you hand. JUST LOOK AT THE CHART, TABLE OR DIAGRAM.

Once you've understood what it means, write down your own description.

I'd wager that not only will your description be every bit as good as the description in the prompt, but the sentence structure will be different (so it won't look like a copy-and-substitute job) and you'll do it more quickly than if you had tried to paraphrase the prompt. Here are a few examples that I did by looking only at the data.

First, from the IELTS 7, Test 1, Writing task 1

After looking at this for a minute, I wrote:

The table shows the proportion of spending on three areas of consumption in five European countries in 2002.

Then I compared it with the prompt, which says:

The table below gives information on consumer spending on different items in five different countries in 2002.

OK, the sentence structure is similar, but the sentence itself is different enough.

Here is another example that I did from IELTS 7, Test 2.

Again, it only took me a minute to write:

The chart presents data that reveal the changes in fish and meat consumption, measured in grams per person per week over a 25 year period from 1979 to 2004.

Compare this to the prompt, which says:

The graph below shows the consumption of fish and some different kinds of meat in a European country between 1979 and 2004.

Quite different.

There is another big advantage to this approach. It really makes you think about what the chart or diagram shows, which will help you to write your response.

So the takeaway from this post is, don't waste your time trying to think of suitable synonyms for words in the prompt. Not only will it take you a longer time, but the introduction that you eventually come up with will probably look strange in terms of vocabulary and too similar in terms of structure.

Only look at the prompt after you have studied the chart or diagram and written down what you think it shows.