Overviews for IELTS Writing Task 1 – Global literacy

By Tony | 12th February 2016 |

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

Clear Overview

Comment on Overviews

Write down the main differences

The chart below shows the proportion of adults able to read and write in different regions of the world.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

IELTS Writing Task 1 Literacy

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

Differences

The chart below shows the proportion of adults able to read and write in different regions of the world.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

IELTS Writing Task 1 Literacy

male literacy was higher than that of females, at 87% and 77%
literacy was highest in Europe and North America
developed regions had higher levels of literacy than developing ones
the largest gender disparity was in Arab nations

Now write an overview

Clear Overview

The chart below shows the proportion of adults able to read and write in different regions of the world.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

IELTS Writing Task 1 Literacy

male literacy was higher than that of females, at 87% and 77%
literacy was highest in Europe and North America
developed regions had higher levels of literacy than developing ones
the largest gender disparity was in Arab nations

Overall, male literacy was higher than that of females, at 87% and 77% respectively, North Americans and Europeans had the highest levels of literacy, and the largest gender disparity was seen in Arab nations.

nb - If there is a global average or total, it must be the most important information, so put it in the overview

Comment on Overviews

Task Achievement, Band score 7:

Task 1 Examiners' Criteria Task Achievement

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

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.

Mention at least two features.

If there's a total or an average, as in this question, it must be the most important information, so include it in the overview.

For more information on overviews, see here

For more information on Task 1 questions see here

To see my Task 1 model answers here

To see corrected students' Task 1 answers see here coming soon

Posted in IELTS, Overview, Task 1, Writing and tagged Overview

2 Comments

Minh Le on 13th February 2016 at 10:21 am

Hi Tony,
I am afraid that you don t realize me as ur old student. I am gonna take the test next March so appreciate your little comments for my following answer: ) . Thanks in advance Tony.

What illustrated in the bar chart is the variations in the percentage of literate adults categorized by gender in seven different regions all over the world according to a research in 2010.
From an overall perspective, it can be seen clearly that adult literacy is more popular among males than females in average with 87% for the former and 77% for the latter.
In particular, Eastern Europe, Western Europe together with two sides of America ( Latin and North) were the regions which accounted for the highest rates of people having capabilities in reading and writing with the figures being over 95 %. In contrast, the least common regarding the ability to read and write belonged to Africa, making up 65% for men and 52% for women.
In addition, It is interesting to note that there was a biggest gap in the level of literacy between male ( 65%) and female (52%) in Arab Nation while the Western of Europe saw an equal percentage in two gender (99%) .

Reply
- Tony on 13th February 2016 at 11:34 am
  
  Hi Minh Le
  
  You’re right – I don’t recognise you 🙁
  
  The organisation of your answer is good, and you’ve selected and highlighted information correctly.
  
  There are some problems with your grammar.
  
  I’ll just mention a few, but there are others. Can you fix them?
  
  > What illustrated in the bar chart
  > adult literacy is more popular
  > two gender
  
  If you’re interested in my marking service, please Send Mail
  
  See here
  
  I suggest the best way to improve your IELTS score is to copy my structures. See here
  
  Tony
  Tony recently posted…Topic sentences for IELTS – how to write a simple topic sentence
  
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Overviews for IELTS Writing Task 1 – Global literacy

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.

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

Now write an overview

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