IELTS Academic/ General Writing Task 1: Complete Guide for Vocabulary and Grammar
Grammar and vocabulary are the dynamic duos of IELTS academic writing tasks. Every component assesses your ability to write/ speak grammatically correct sentences and to use contextual vocabulary. In the writing task 1, grammar and vocabulary play an important role. Let us see how!
IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 Marking Criteria
As suggested by many experts, understanding the exam format and the marking criteria makes your preparation a lot easier and not to mention, organised.
In the writing task 1, you will be asked to write a letter in 150 words. It could be formal, informal or semi-formal. You shouldn’t spend more than 20 minutes writing this letter and must take care that you do not write less than 150 words.
If your word count exceeds 10-15 words, it is acceptable. However, you must not keep on writing as the second task needs more time.
The Marking Criteria are Fairly Detailed for Writing Task 1:
- Grammatical range and accuracy
- Task achievement
- Lexical resource
- Coherence and cohesion
Here you can see that grammar accounts for 25% of the marks in your IELTS writing task 1 topic. Furthermore, your grammar is assessed in two things:
- Ability to write grammatically accurate sentences.
- Ability to use a wide range of grammar structures.
Accuracy of Grammar
Examiners look for how many ‘error-free’ sentences you have written. Therefore, you need to make sure each sentence has no errors. Even a small mistake like an article in the wrong place or misplaced plural counts towards this.
As a result, it is vital that you check your work after you finish writing. Always try to leave yourself two minutes in the end to proofread your work. Simple errors, which could be fixed with a quick check, select and report or modify, will really damage your marks in this area.
Range of Grammar
A good academic writing task answer will have a range of appropriate structures and tenses. Many students try to insert complex sentences and tenses into their answers. This isn’t a good strategy. It will make your answers look unnatural and can result in you making mistakes.
A good answer uses complex sentences (such as conditional and relative clauses) that flow naturally.
Grammar for IELTS General Writing Task 1
Grammar is often the area that students struggle with the most, as it can easily bring a student’s scores down. The most important thing you have to do for any IELTS writing task 1 is to answer the question. For general training task 1 questions you always have to write a letter.
You will notice that the question below states that you should write about why you are writing to your friend and then gives four bullet points for you to mention. These are the five main things you must write about and you should write about these five things and these five things only.
More Detail
Now that you have your five main points you simply split your letter into five main paragraphs and deal with each main point in a separate paragraph.
In each paragraph, you should make it very clear which point you are writing about in order to make it obvious to the examiner. You can do this by including keywords from the question, or even better, synonyms or paraphrases of those keywords.
Grammar for IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
Students taking the IELTS academic test need to write a report on a data set, pie chart, map, or process. You must write 150 words or more. Task 1 is worth 1/3 of your total mark on the Writing test.
The most important thing is that you can demonstrate that you can clearly communicate in English. The key to doing well is to know exactly what the examiners want and give it to them.
To check the complete guide for vocabulary and grammar, just click here