In IELTS Academic Writing Task 1, you don’t describe a line graph point by point. You summarise it: pick out the main changes and compare the lines. A list of every figure looks thorough, but the main point gets lost in it. Below you’ll find the task, a typical first attempt, feedback on all four criteria and an improved answer. In LetsWords, you go through the same steps with your own writing: you get feedback on your answer, then work separately on the criterion that holds you back most.
The task: a line graph
The graph below shows the percentage of adults in one country who used three different book formats between 2014 and 2024.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
What to notice before you write
Ask yourself three questions. Together, the answers give you the overview: the big picture. Without it, your description is just a list of numbers.
- What is highest at the start and at the end? Printed books: 62% in 2014 and 45% in 2024. Their share fell, but they stayed the most popular format.
- Which lines change direction or speed? E-books grew quickly until 2020, then stalled at 30% and dipped slightly. Audiobooks grew slowly at first, then faster and faster.
- Where do the lines cross? By 2024, audiobooks (31%) had overtaken e-books (28%).
For the details, you only need the starting and final figures, the e-book peak and two audiobook figures that show the slow start and the later acceleration. The official description of Task 1 asks you to include the most important points and lets you leave out minor details. The LetsWords task guide for line graphs works the same way: first an overview of the main trends, then details grouped by how the lines move, with only the figures that support the overview.
The first attempt: every figure, no big picture
The graph shows information about how many people used books in one country from 2014 till 2024. There are three types of books.
In 2014, 62% of people used printed books. In 2016 it was 59% and in 2018 it was 56%. In 2020 the percent of printed books decrease to 51% and in 2022 it was 48%. In 2024 it decrease to 45%. So the percent of printed books decrease during the whole period.
E-books were 12% in 2014. Then they increase on 7% and were 19% in 2016. In 2018 they increased to 26% and in 2020 they increased to 30%. In 2022 it was 30% again and in 2024 it was 28%.
Audiobooks were 4% in 2014 and 5% in 2016. In 2018 they were 8%, in 2020 they were 14% and in 2022 they were 22%. In 2024 the percent of audiobooks increased on 31%.
In conclusion, printed books decrease and e-books and audiobooks increase.
The answer is over 150 words, and every figure is correct. But the reader has to work out for themselves what happened over the ten years.
LetsWords feedback example: overview first, wording second
The feedback covers all four IELTS criteria, but the fixes don’t carry equal weight. The Task Achievement fix will do the most for this answer: without an overview and comparisons, even error-free sentences don’t complete the task.
Task Achievement: no overview, no comparisons. Only the last sentence tries to give the big picture: In conclusion, printed books decrease and e-books and audiobooks increase. On e-books, it misses the key point: after 2020, their share stopped growing and even fell. It doesn’t say that printed books stayed the most popular, and it skips the point where the lines cross. There are no comparisons between the formats. Even the introduction is inaccurate: the graph shows percentages, not numbers of people.
The corrected overview comes straight after the introduction and uses no figures:
Overall, printed books remained the most popular format throughout the period, although their use declined steadily. Both digital formats became more common, but while e-book use levelled off after 2020, audiobook use grew at an accelerating rate and had overtaken it by 2024.
Coherence and Cohesion: a timeline instead of grouping. Each format gets its own paragraph, a run of in 2016 it was…, in 2018 it was…, and nothing links the paragraphs. Group the data by trend, and use linking words to show how the facts relate:
Audiobook use grew slowly at first, reaching only 8% in 2018, but then accelerated. By contrast, e-book use levelled off at around 30% from 2020.
Lexical Resource: name what is being measured. E-books can’t “be 12%”, as in E-books were 12% in 2014: the 12% is the share of adults who used them. Instead of the percent of printed books, write the percentage of adults who used printed books, or more concisely printed book use. The noun you need is percentage, and the share is of adults, not of books. Replace the repeated it was with verbs of movement: fell to, levelled off, overtook.
In 2014, 12% of adults used e-books.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: repetitive sentences, tenses and prepositions with numbers.
- decrease to 51% → decreased to 51%: the period is over, so you need the Past Simple.
- increase on 7% → increased by seven percentage points: to give the size of a change, use by. With percentages, the difference is measured in percentage points.
- increased on 31% → increased to 31%: to give the level reached, use to.
- from 2014 till 2024 → between 2014 and 2024: till sounds too informal.
- Almost every sentence follows the same pattern: In 2016 it was 59%, In 2018 they were 8%. Range also calls for complex structures, as in the improved answer: …, reaching 45% in 2024, which was still well above…
The free go up exercise covers the on mistake and the choice between by and to, while rise vs raise explains how rise differs from raise.
LetsWords feedback is tied to the phrases in your own answer and ends with concrete next steps: what to rewrite first and which criterion to practise.
The improved answer
The line graph compares the percentage of adults in one country who used printed books, e-books and audiobooks between 2014 and 2024.
Overall, printed books remained the most popular format throughout the period, although their use declined steadily. Both digital formats became more common, but while e-book use levelled off after 2020, audiobook use grew at an accelerating rate and had overtaken it by 2024.
In 2014, 62% of adults used printed books, compared with 12% for e-books and 4% for audiobooks. Over the following decade, the figure for printed books fell gradually, reaching 45% in 2024, which was still well above the figures for both digital formats.
E-book use, by contrast, rose sharply between 2014 and 2020, more than doubling to 30%. It remained at that level in 2022 before dipping slightly to 28% in 2024. Audiobooks followed a different pattern: their use grew slowly at first, reaching only 8% in 2018, but then accelerated, climbing to 22% in 2022 and 31% in 2024, which put audiobooks ahead of e-books. By 2024, the gap between printed books and the most popular digital format had narrowed from 50 to 14 percentage points.
The improved answer keeps nine of the graph’s 18 figures, and each one supports the overview. Every detail paragraph compares the formats with each other.
Language for describing trends
Movement: rise sharply, fall gradually, level off, dip slightly, overtake, a dramatic increase, where dramatic means sudden and large.
Figures: rise by seven percentage points for the size of a change, rise to 31% for the level reached, peak at 30%. For parts of a whole, as in a pie chart, use account for. It doesn’t suit this graph: 62% is the percentage of adults who used printed books, not a slice of one total shared by the three formats.
Comparison: whereas, while, in contrast, unlike. An overview usually opens with overall, not in conclusion. You’ll find more in the Linking words section.
These are free LetsWords exercises, each with a common mistake and an answer check. But for an expression to appear in your own answer, you have to recall it yourself. In the LetsWords vocabulary trainer, you add expressions to your own collection, recall them from a hint in your native language, write sentences with them and get feedback, while spaced repetition brings them back in later sessions.
Applying the approach to bar charts, pie charts and tables
The questions stay the same: what matters most, what to compare with what, and which figures support it. What changes is what counts as the main feature.
- Bar chart: the highest and lowest values, the most noticeable gap or the order of the categories.
- Pie chart: the largest and smallest shares and, if there are several charts, the main change between them.
- Table: the highest and lowest values, and rows or columns that look alike. Don’t go cell by cell.
In the LetsWords task guides, each task type has its own response structure and checklist. The task bank includes line graphs, bar charts, pie charts, tables, mixed charts, maps and processes.
Your next practice in LetsWords: your own overview of a new graph
The only way to know you’ve mastered the skill is to try it on new data. Pick another line graph task in LetsWords and start with Task Achievement criterion practice. You don’t need a full answer: the task asks for an overview plus two or three sentences covering the general direction of the lines, the most noticeable change or contrast, and a comparison of the starting and final figures. The feedback covers this criterion only.
If your details still go year by year, switch to Coherence and Cohesion practice: an overview plus details grouped by trend. If prepositions and tenses trip you up, choose Grammatical Range and Accuracy practice with from… to…, while and by the end of the period.
Then write a full answer. Before you submit, go through the checklist. One item, for example, asks you to compare the lines with each other instead of describing each one separately, year by year. Feedback on all four criteria shows what to fix first. You can also submit an answer you’ve already written. For more on Task 1 formats and how to practise them, see the IELTS Writing Task 1 page.
Choose your IELTS Writing practice in LetsWords: write your own answers, get feedback on all four criteria and practise your weakest criterion on new graphs.