Academic Task 1
The most data-dense question, and the one where selection matters most. With a worked example and a practice exercise.
An IELTS Task 1 table gives you more numbers than any other question type and no visual shape to help you interpret them. Nothing rises or falls on the page, so the pattern has to be found rather than seen.
That makes selection the whole skill. A table with twenty-four cells cannot be described in 170 words, and any attempt to try produces a list that scores Band 6 no matter how accurate every sentence is.
The task
Six points, beginning with how to read the thing.
Run your eye across one row, then down one column. The pattern is usually in one direction and not the other, and finding which takes about thirty seconds.
The largest and smallest values in the table are almost always significant features, and they give you an overview immediately.
If the columns are years, treat it as a trend and use past tenses. If they are categories, treat it as a comparison. The language follows from that.
Two or three categories that behave alike belong in one sentence. Grouping is the difference between an answer that selects and one that recites.
The highest and lowest overall, plus any pattern that holds across the table. Two sentences, no figures.
Check what the numbers actually are. Tables mix percentages, absolute figures and averages more often than any other question type, and a heading misread in the first minute runs through the whole answer.
Worked example
The table below is a typical Task 1 table. The model covers the introduction and overview.
| City | Spring | Summer | Autumn | Winter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| City W | 180 | 60 | 210 | 340 |
| City X | 95 | 110 | 105 | 90 |
| City Y | 240 | 390 | 260 | 70 |
| City Z | 60 | 15 | 55 | 120 |
Introduction. The table gives the average rainfall in millimetres recorded in four cities across the four seasons.
Overview. The cities fall into two clear groups: those where rainfall is concentrated in winter and those where it peaks in summer. City X is the exception, receiving a similar amount in every season, while City Z was the driest overall by a wide margin.
Body paragraph. City W and City Z both received most of their rainfall in winter, at 340 and 120 millimetres respectively, and least in summer. City Y showed the opposite pattern, with a summer peak of 390 millimetres falling to only 70 in winter.
Sixteen numbers, six quoted. The overview names a grouping that is not visible until you look down the columns, and that is exactly what a table is testing.
Method
Six things that decide whether this task reaches Band 7.
Do not start writing until you can say in one sentence what the table shows. Time spent finding the pattern is recovered several times over.
Circle them on the question paper. Those two cells usually give you the overview and one body paragraph between them.
A row that does not follow the pattern is a significant feature, and naming it is worth more than another three figures.
Support each point with one or two numbers. The rest of the table is context, not content.
Millimetres, thousands, per cent. Dropping the unit turns a precise sentence into an ambiguous one.
One sentence paraphrasing the question. Tables tempt candidates into long introductions and the marks are not there.
Practice
Six questions on the language this task needs. Choose the best option.
Every option below is grammatically possible. The question is which one an examiner would read as accurate and appropriately selective.
That judgement is what Task Achievement and Lexical Resource are measuring in this task.
1A table has sixteen values. How many should a 170-word answer quote?
Around six. Figures support the points you have chosen. Quoting all of them leaves no room for the grouping and comparison that Task Achievement rewards, and quoting none leaves the claims unsupported.
2Which is the better overview sentence for the rainfall table?
The second. It states a pattern found by reading down the columns. The first is a list, the third is a comment, and the fourth is the introduction.
3Correct the error: City Y received the most rainfall in summer, with 390.
With 390 millimetres. A figure without its unit is incomplete, and in a table answer the unit is often the only thing telling the reader what kind of number it is.
4The columns of a table are years. How should you write about it?
As change over time. A table with years behaves exactly like a line graph. What the data shows matters more than the shape it is presented in.
5Which sentence groups the data most usefully?
The second. It puts two rows into one pattern, which is the move that turns a list into a description. The third says nothing and the fourth is a detail rather than a pattern.
6Which of these should not appear in a table answer?
The inference. The table gives rainfall, not climate type. Conclusions the data does not state are speculation and are not credited.
That is the harder half of this task, and it is invisible from inside your own answer. An answer can be accurate in every sentence and still score Band 6 because it described everything instead of choosing what mattered.
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Choosing the better sentence from four is not the same as producing one under time with a chart in front of you.
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Most candidates find it harder, because no pattern is visible. The information is the same; it simply has to be found rather than seen.
Around six in a 170-word answer. Each one should support a point you have chosen to make rather than fill space.
Yes, like every Task 1 question. It is also where a table answer is most often lost, because candidates start listing straight away.
Then it is a comparison, so use the present simple and comparative language rather than trend verbs.
You can, and it will score Band 6. Selection and grouping are what raise the band, not completeness.
Full membership
Task Achievement rewards choosing the significant features and reporting them accurately. Nobody can judge their own selection, because the things you left out are exactly the things you did not notice.
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