{"id":702,"date":"2015-05-13T22:57:48","date_gmt":"2015-05-13T15:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/humorous-knowledge.flywheelsites.com\/?p=702"},"modified":"2022-11-06T06:06:41","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T06:06:41","slug":"ielts-task-1-overview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ieltsadvantage.com\/2015\/05\/13\/ielts-task-1-overview\/","title":{"rendered":"IELTS Task 1- How to Write an Overview"},"content":{"rendered":"

The overview is probably the most important paragraph in the whole essay. In fact, as we will see later in this post, it is very difficult to score 7 or above without a good one.<\/p>\n

An overview is simply a summary of the main or most important points in a graph, chart, process or map. It is normally 2-3 sentences long and should be the second paragraph you write in your essay. As we will see below, it also influences what you write in the rest of your essay.<\/p>\n

Learn how to write a good one, and you are much more likely to get a high score.<\/p>\n

What does the examiner want?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

An overview is one of the first things an examiner looks for because it shows them that you can identify the most important information from the graph or chart and clearly identify overall trends and comparisons.<\/p>\n

If we look at the official marking scheme, we can see that the word ‘overview’ is mentioned three times:<\/p>\n

\"IELTS<\/p>\n

This means that to get at least a 5 for task achievement we must give some kind of overview. If we do not give any overview, we will always get below a 5. If we select the appropriate data to include in our overview, we get a score of 6, and if it is ‘clear’ we get a 7 for this part of the exam.<\/p>\n

If you know how to select the appropriate data and practice writing a clear overview, you will likely get the score you deserve in this section.<\/p>\n

What is an overview? <\/strong><\/p>\n

To understand this, we must look at the question. The question for academic task one is always the same:<\/p>\n

Summarise<\/strong> the information by selecting and reporting the main features<\/strong>, and make comparisons where relevant.<\/p>\n

We, therefore, need to provide a short summary of the main features. You do this in the overview paragraph by picking out 3-4 of the most significant things you can see and writing them in general terms. By general, I mean you do not support anything you see with data from the graph or chart, write about what you can see visually.<\/p>\n

How do I select the\u00a0correct features?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

To understand this, we have to think about the different types of graphs and charts we might see. There are generally two different kinds of charts and graphs: dynamic and static.<\/p>\n

Dynamic charts show data over time, and static charts show data at just one point in time. This will affect the type of data we select.<\/p>\n

When we are looking at dynamic graphs,<\/strong> we should be looking out for:<\/p>\n