We use this tense generally to talk about an action that happened at an unspecified time before now. This is not a complete list of tenses and an awareness of all the English tenses will help you achieve the IELTS score you need. Remember, the tense you use will depend on the information displayed in the graph.
There are three main ways you can describe increases and decreases. When describing any of the charts in IELTS writing task 1, you might have to describe increases and decreases. There has been a sharp drop in the price of oil. There was a gradual rise in the price of oil. There are two main grammatical structures we can use to describe trends. This may come up in a line graph, bar chart or when comparing more than one chart. In IELTS writing task 1 you may have to describe trends. I discuss process diagrams in a separate post. I have only included advice for charts, such as pie charts, line graphs and bar charts, in this post. In other words, don’t insert complicated sentences or tenses just for the sake of it.īelow is some advice on certain grammar structures that will help boost your score in part one of the writing test, if used appropriately. This is a poor strategy that will make your answers look unnatural and can result in you making mistakes.Ī good answer uses complex sentences (such as conditional and relative clauses) that flow naturally.
Many students try to insert complex sentences and tenses into their answers.
Range of grammarĪ good answer will have a range of appropriate structures and tenses. Simple errors, which could be fixed with a quick check, will really damage your marks in this area. Always try to leave yourself two minutes at the end to proofread your work. Even a small mistake like an article in the wrong place or misplaced plural counts towards this.Īs a result, it is vital that you check your work after you finish writing. Therefore, you need to make sure each sentence has no errors. Accuracy of grammarĮxaminers look for how many ‘error free’ sentences you have.