# task1_calibration - **Original Source:** `task1_calibration.txt` - **Category:** `writing` - **Original Format:** `.txt` --- IELTS WRITING TASK ONE. CALIBRATION TRACK. This track shows you six complete Task One reports and flags a small number of common phrase-bank errors that will cost you marks if you use them. A phrase bank has one weakness. It teaches you what to say and not how much. Task One is the one task in the test where the length is fixed by the clock, and both of your habits are dangerous here. Too short, and you fall under the minimum. Too long, and you eat the time that belongs to Task Two, which is worth twice as many marks. CALIBRATION. THE NUMBERS THAT MATTER. Minimum, one hundred and fifty words. Below that you are penalized before anyone reads the report. Target, one hundred and seventy to one hundred and ninety words. Long enough to be safe. Short enough to leave time. Twenty minutes total. Three minutes reading the chart and deciding the grouping. Fourteen minutes writing. Three minutes checking, and the check reads for two things only. Agreement, then tense. Nothing else. Four paragraphs. Roughly thirty words of introduction, thirty five of overview, and sixty of each body paragraph. That is the whole budget. If you have written a hundred and ninety words and half the data is still unmentioned, you have chosen the wrong grouping. Group harder. You are not obliged to report every number, only the significant ones. SIX PHRASES TO DROP FROM YOUR BANK. Six items to avoid before you keep drilling. Each of these is either a collocation error or a word choice native writers do not use in Task One. One. The word witnessed. Some phrase banks recommend the data witnessed a marked decline. Only a time period or a place can witness something. Say instead, category B registered a marked decline, or underwent a marked decline, or simply, there was a marked decline in category B. Two. The word experienced, in the same formula. Same problem, same fix. Category A recorded an upward trajectory. Category A rose steadily. Three. The verbs rocket and soar. Both belong in journalism and carry the same exaggeration as dramatic, which should also be avoided. Climbed sharply, rose markedly, and increased steeply do the same work at the right register. Keep surge for a genuinely steep rise, and use it once. Four. Financial intake, financial valuation, and disbursements. Financial intake is not an English collocation. A valuation is an estimate of what something is worth, not a price. Disbursements are payments released from a fund, not spending in general. Say revenue, earnings, price, cost, and expenditure. Expenditure and revenue are already high level words. They are enough. Five. Precisely one third for thirty three percent. Precisely one third is thirty three point three recurring. Thirty three percent is approximately one third. Say approximately, or give the exact figure. The same applies to replacing seventy four percent with just under three quarters. In Task One, accuracy is graded. Give the figure and let the approximation support it, not replace it. Six. The data regards the general populace. Regards does not mean this. Say the data relate to, or the figures concern, or simply, the chart shows the general population. Two smaller notes. Reached its zenith is overblown for a bar chart. Peaked is better. And moult is British spelling, molt is American. Pick one variety and hold it, as with the essay bank. One more rule worth stating plainly. Never copy the wording of the question into your introduction. Paraphrase it. A copied introduction is deducted from your word count. THE TENSE MAP. Your recurring failure is tense collapse under load. Task One is unusually kind here, because the chart itself tells you which tense to use. Learn the four cases and the decision disappears. Case one. A chart with dates that have all passed. Past simple throughout. The figure rose. Consumption fell. Case two. A chart with dates running into the future, or labelled as projections. Future forms for those years only. The figure is expected to reach. Consumption will rise. Case three. A chart with no dates at all. Present simple throughout. Households in Japan spend twenty eight percent on housing. Case four. Maps and processes. Maps use past simple for the earlier map and present simple or present perfect for the later one. Man made processes use the present simple passive. Natural processes use the present simple active. Inside one report, the tense does not move unless the chart moves it. That is the whole rule. HOW TO USE THIS TRACK. Each item describes the chart in words, states the grouping decision, gives the full report, and then says what to notice in it. Listen to the report as a whole first. Do not memorize the reports. Memorize the proportions. REPORT ONE. LINE GRAPH. DYNAMIC DATA. The chart. A line graph showing telephone subscriptions per one hundred inhabitants worldwide, from two thousand to twenty twenty. Mobile subscriptions begin at twelve, reach seventy six by twenty ten, and finish at one hundred and five. Fixed line subscriptions begin at sixteen, peak at seventeen around two thousand and five, and fall to twelve by the end. The grouping. Dynamic chart, so group by direction. One paragraph up, one paragraph down. Here is the report. The line graph illustrates how many mobile and fixed telephone subscriptions were held per one hundred inhabitants worldwide over a two decade period commencing in two thousand. Overall, mobile subscriptions climbed steeply throughout the entire timeframe and ended as by far the more common of the two technologies, whereas fixed lines peaked early and then declined gradually. The two figures were broadly comparable at the onset of the period and diverged sharply thereafter. In the initial year under review, mobile subscriptions stood at twelve per hundred people, marginally below the figure for fixed lines. Over the subsequent decade this figure surged, reaching seventy six by twenty ten. Growth then slowed, though it continued, rising to one hundred and five by the close of the period. Fixed line subscriptions followed the opposite pattern. Beginning at sixteen per hundred, they edged up to a peak of seventeen around two thousand and five before contracting steadily to twelve in the final year, a net fall of four. The gap between the two categories widened continuously after that peak. End of report. One hundred and sixty-five words as it would be written, with the figures as numerals. What to notice. Past simple throughout, because every date on the chart has passed. Not one present tense verb in the whole report, and no opportunity for one. The overview contains no figures. It contains a shape. Steeply up, gradually down, comparable at the start, diverged after. Watch the agreement. This figure surged, singular. Fixed line subscriptions followed, plural. The gap widened, singular, with the plural word categories sitting directly in front of the verb. Notice also the phrase a net fall of four. Giving the margin as well as the endpoints is a cheap way to show you can read a chart rather than transcribe it. REPORT TWO. BAR CHART. STATIC DATA. The chart. A bar chart showing the percentage of monthly household expenditure devoted to housing, food, and leisure in three countries. No dates. Housing, twenty eight percent in Japan, twenty four in Turkey, fifteen in Nigeria. Food, twenty percent in Japan, thirty three in Turkey, fifty two in Nigeria. Leisure, fourteen percent in Japan, eight in Turkey, three in Nigeria. The grouping. Static chart, so group by rank. One paragraph for the dominant categories, one for the smallest, with the exception noted. Here is the report. The bar chart compares three countries in terms of the proportion of monthly household expenditure allocated to housing, food, and leisure. Broadly speaking, food and housing account for the great majority of spending in all three countries, while leisure represents only a small share everywhere. The most prominent pattern to emerge is that the balance between food and housing reverses as national income falls. Food is the single largest category in Nigeria, at fifty two percent, and in Turkey, at thirty three percent. Housing, by contrast, is dominant in Japan, where it absorbs twenty eight percent of household spending, exceeding the Japanese food figure by eight percentage points. Turkey occupies an intermediate position on both measures, with twenty four percent devoted to housing. Leisure receives the smallest allocation in every country, though the disparity between them is considerable. Japanese households dedicate fourteen percent to leisure, more than four times the Nigerian figure of three percent. With the notable exception of Japan, no country in the chart spends more than a tenth of its household budget on leisure. End of report. One hundred and seventy-three words as it would be written, with the figures as numerals. What to notice. Present simple throughout, because there are no dates. This is the case where candidates leak past tense in from habit. Every verb here is present. Food is. Housing absorbs. Households dedicate. The exception is handled with the safe construction, with the notable exception of, rather than an inverted conditional. The conditional was available and unnecessary. Agreement traps. Food is, singular. Households dedicate, plural. The disparity between them is, singular, with a plural pronoun immediately before the verb. Leisure receives, singular. Notice percentage points rather than percent for a difference between two percentages. That distinction is small and examiners notice it. REPORT THREE. TWO PIE CHARTS. PROPORTIONS ACROSS TIME. The chart. Two circular charts showing the sources of electricity generation in one country in nineteen ninety and in twenty twenty. In nineteen ninety, coal forty five percent, nuclear twenty five, gas twenty, renewables ten. In twenty twenty, renewables thirty five, gas thirty, nuclear twenty, coal fifteen. The grouping. Dynamic in effect, since there are two dates. Group by direction. What grew, then what shrank. Here is the report. The two circular charts compare the sources of electricity generation in a single country in nineteen ninety and thirty years later. Overall, the country moved away from coal and toward renewable sources over the period, and the ranking of the four categories was almost completely reversed. Nuclear generation was the only segment to remain broadly stable. Renewables recorded the most substantial growth. Accounting for merely a tenth of generation in nineteen ninety, this segment rose to thirty five percent by twenty twenty, becoming the largest single source. Gas followed a similar pattern, expanding by half, from a fifth of the total to thirty percent, and it finished as the second largest contributor. Coal moved in the opposite direction, and did so sharply. Having supplied forty five percent of electricity in the first year, it fell to just fifteen percent, a reduction of two thirds. Nuclear generation proved the most stable category, slipping only marginally from a quarter of the total to a fifth, and it was overtaken by both renewables and gas as a result. End of report. One hundred and sixty-eight words as it would be written, with the figures as numerals. What to notice. Pie chart vocabulary throughout. Segment, share, proportion, accounting for, a tenth, a fifth, a quarter. The words number and amount do not appear. Fractions and percentages are alternated deliberately. A tenth, then thirty five percent. A fifth of the total, then thirty percent. This is the cheapest lexical variety available in Task One and almost nobody uses it. There is one participle clause opening a sentence, accounting for merely a tenth, and one past participle clause, having supplied forty five percent. Both attach to the correct subject. Check that attachment every time, exactly as in the essay bank. REPORT FOUR. MAP. A VILLAGE, THEN AND NOW. The maps. A coastal village in nineteen eighty and today. In nineteen eighty, farmland occupied the east, a small school stood in the centre, woodland covered the north, and a single road ran along the coast. Today, the farmland has been replaced by housing, the school has been extended, the woodland has been partly cleared for a car park and a hotel, and a second road crosses the village from north to south. The grouping. Maps group by time. One paragraph for what was there, one for what replaced it. Here is the report. The two maps illustrate the changes that took place in a coastal village between nineteen eighty and the present day. Overall, the village underwent extensive infrastructural development over the period, shifting from a largely agricultural settlement to a residential and tourist one. Much of this expansion occurred at the expense of the natural spaces that dominated the original layout. In nineteen eighty, the village was small and mainly agricultural. Farmland occupied the entire eastern side, woodland covered the north, and a single road ran along the coastline. The only substantial building was a school, situated in the centre of the village, and there was no accommodation for visitors of any kind. The modern map shows considerably denser development. The farmland has been built over entirely and now accommodates a large housing estate, while a hotel and an adjoining car park have been erected in the north, on land formerly occupied by woodland. The school remains in its original position but has been extended westward. A second road has also been constructed, running north to south and intersecting the coastal road near the centre. End of report. One hundred and eighty words as it would be written, with the figures as numerals. What to notice. The tense split is the whole grammar of a map report. The first body paragraph is past simple, because that village no longer exists. The second is present perfect and present simple, because those changes have happened and their results are visible now. Has been built over. Now accommodates. Has been extended. Remains. That split is exactly the kind of controlled tense change you find difficult under load, and here it is announced by the paragraph break. Use the structure to carry the tense. Compass directions do a great deal of work. Eastern side, in the north, north to south, westward. A map report without them reads as vague. Notice at the expense of the natural spaces in the overview. That phrase states a fact about the maps, not a judgment about development. Keep it that side of the line. REPORT FIVE. PROCESS. MAN MADE. The diagram. The recycling of glass bottles. Bottles are collected from households, transported to a facility, sorted by colour, washed, crushed into small fragments, melted in a furnace at high temperature, moulded into new bottles, and returned to the retailer. The overview for a process states the number of stages, the starting point, and the end point. Here is the report. The diagram explains how used glass bottles are recycled and returned to commercial use. Overall, this is a multi staged process comprising eight distinct steps, commencing with the collection of used bottles from households and culminating in the delivery of new bottles to retailers. The sequence is linear and, notably, it is also a closed loop, since the final product re enters the cycle. In the first stage, used bottles are gathered from domestic collection points and transported by lorry to a processing facility. On arrival they are sorted by colour, which determines how they can be reused, and are then washed to remove any residual contamination. Once this phase is complete, the cleaned bottles are crushed into small fragments known as cullet. The second half of the process is industrial. The cullet is fed into a furnace and melted at extremely high temperature until it becomes a molten liquid. This liquid is subsequently poured into moulds, where it is shaped into new bottles and left to cool. The finished bottles are finally packaged and distributed to retailers, at which point the cycle begins again. End of report. One hundred and eighty-five words as it would be written, with the figures as numerals. What to notice. Present simple passive from beginning to end. Are gathered. Are sorted. Is crushed. Is fed. Is poured. There is no human agent anywhere, and none is needed. Keep all parts of the passive intact. The verb to be, then the past participle. Under time pressure the word are is the one that disappears, and its absence is highly visible. Sequencing is done with real phrases rather than counting. On arrival. Once this phase is complete. Subsequently. Finally. At which point. No numbers appear except the number of stages. A process diagram has no data to report, which is why candidates run short on this type. The rescue is the level of detail. Sorted by colour, which determines how they can be reused, is a clause earned entirely by looking closely at the diagram. REPORT SIX. PROCESS. NATURAL. The diagram. The life cycle of a frog. Eggs are laid in water in a mass, the tadpole hatches, it grows hind legs then front legs, the tail is absorbed, the young frog leaves the water, and the adult returns to breed. Here is the report. The diagram illustrates the life cycle of the common frog, from egg to breeding adult. Overall, the cycle consists of six main stages and is notable for the complete physical transformation the organism undergoes at its midpoint. The process begins and ends in water, although the adult animal spends much of its life on land. The cycle commences when the female deposits a large mass of eggs, known as frogspawn, in shallow water. After roughly three weeks the tadpole hatches and swims freely, breathing through external gills and feeding on algae. At this stage it bears almost no resemblance to the adult. The transformation occupies the middle of the cycle. As the tadpole matures, it first develops hind legs and then front legs, while the tail gradually shortens and is absorbed into the body. Lungs replace the gills, allowing the young frog to leave the water for the first time. Once fully grown, the adult returns to the same water to breed, and the cycle begins again. End of report. One hundred and sixty-seven words as it would be written, with the figures as numerals. What to notice. Active voice throughout, because the animal performs each action itself. The tadpole hatches. It develops. The tail shortens. Compare that directly with the previous report, where nothing acted on its own. There is one passive, is absorbed into the body, and it is correct, because the tail does not absorb itself. Agreement under load. The tadpole hatches. It bears. The tail shortens. Lungs replace, plural. Every one of those is a third person verb in a report with no numbers to distract you, which is precisely why the s goes missing here. Time is handled without dates. After roughly three weeks. As the tadpole matures. Once fully grown. Those phrases replace step one and step two. THE TWO FAILURE DEMONSTRATIONS. Running short. Same line graph as report one. The graph shows mobile and fixed telephone subscriptions from two thousand to twenty twenty. Mobile subscriptions were twelve in two thousand and one hundred and five in twenty twenty. Fixed lines were sixteen in two thousand and twelve in twenty twenty. Mobile subscriptions increased and fixed lines decreased. In twenty ten mobile subscriptions were seventy six. Sixty two words. Three problems, and only one of them is the length. There is no overview paragraph at all, which caps the task achievement score on its own. The figures are listed rather than described, so no trend language appears. And the two categories are interleaved rather than grouped, so there is no visible structure. The repair is not more words. It is the overview. Write the overview second, before either body paragraph, and write it with no figures in it. A report with a real overview almost cannot fall under a hundred and fifty words, because the structure forces you to describe each group twice, once in shape and once in numbers. Drifting. Same graph. The graph shows telephone subscriptions. Mobile subscriptions increased from twelve to one hundred and five, which is a very large increase, probably because mobile phones became much cheaper during this period and network coverage improved considerably in developing countries. In two thousand and one the figure was around eighteen, in two thousand and two around twenty four, in two thousand and three around thirty one, and in two thousand and four around forty. Fixed lines were less popular because people preferred the convenience of a mobile handset, and many households decided that maintaining a landline was no longer worth the expense... Two separate failures, both fatal. The first is speculation. Probably because mobile phones became cheaper is a Task Two sentence. Nothing on that chart says anything about price, and the moment you explain a cause you have left the task. The second is transcription. Reading out every year on the axis is not description, and it will carry you well past two hundred and fifty words with nothing to show for it. The repair for both is the same question, asked before you write each sentence. Is this printed on the chart, and is it significant? If it is not printed, you are speculating. If it is printed but not significant, you are transcribing. THE RESCUE LINES. For when you have written the body paragraphs and are short. Each of these adds a legitimate sentence without inventing anything. Give the margin. The figure for X exceeded that of Y by twelve percentage points. Give the net change. This represents a net increase of thirty over the period. Compare the two groups directly. The gap between the two categories widened continuously after that point. Name the exception. With the notable exception of Japan, no country exceeded a tenth. State a relationship. The data reveal an inverse relationship between the two categories. All five are facts about the chart. None of them is speculation. CLOSING CHECKLIST. One hundred and seventy to one hundred and ninety words. Twenty minutes. Four paragraphs. Introduction with no data. Overview with no figures. Two body paragraphs with exact figures. Dynamic charts group by direction. Static charts group by rank. Maps group by time. Processes group by half. The chart chooses your tense. Dates passed, past simple. No dates, present simple. Man made process, present simple passive. Natural process, present simple active. Paraphrase the question. Never copy it. Describe only what is printed. If you have written the word because, read the sentence again. Three minutes at the end, reading for agreement and tense only. End of track.