Double tasks in IELTS academic writing task 1.
Updated: May 7th 2022
In IELTS academic writing task 1 you could get a double or multiple task, such as a table and a bar graph, a pie chart and a table, or a line graph and a table.
I will look at a Pie chart and a table from the recent Cambridge IELTS 15 book in this post. Double tasks like this are quite straightforward. Just write about the pie chart in main body one and the table in main body two and make comparisons if possible. See the model answer below and analysis.
Model Answer
Source: Cambridge IELTS academic 15, page 93
The pie chart illustrates what Anthropology students took part in after their undergraduate course, while the table indicates what their salaries were after 5 years of working in this field.
Overall, it is evident that the vast majority of students took part in both full time and part-time work after graduation, while the highest salaries seem to be in the government and freelance sectors.
Looking at the pie chart, graduates who began full-time work accounted for just over a half (52%) with those in part-time work comprising less than a fifth (15%). A small minority of graduates engaged in postgraduate study and part-time work at just 5%, with full-time postgraduate students totalling 8%. Most notably, 12% of those who graduated became unemployed.
With regard to the table, the highest earners ($100,000+) were those in the freelance and government sectors at 40% and 50% respectively. The 25,000 to 50,000 dollar wage bracket comprised the lowest figures (5 to 10%). For the private worker’s category, 35% of graduates were in the 50 to 75 thousand dollars range, which was the highest figure in this category.
188 words
Analysis
In this task, there is no timeframe so it is static data. This means that the data doesn’t change over time. However, the task is about students who graduated, it denotes a time in the past so I wrote in the past tense here.
The overview simply covers the main features that stand out in the charts, main body one covers the data in the pie chart and main body 2 covers the main features in the table. Notice that I did not cover every bit of data as this is not necessary for task 1.
Pick out the key features such as the highest and lowest figures and cover those. The word count is 188 words here, which is long enough for task 1. Keep it under 190 words if you can as you only have 20 minutes to write this.
Useful links
In this task 1 model answer, I used fractions to paraphrase the percentages and I also use specific vocabulary such as: comprised/accounted for / totalling / see the links below for more info.
Using fractions and approximation
Useful vocabulary in task 1
Leave a comment below if you have any questions.