How to Answer IELTS Writing Task 1 General
Hi, I’m Justin.
Welcome to Oxford Online English!
In this lesson, you can learn how to answer
task one of the IELTS general writing exam.
In the general IELTS writing exam, task one
involves writing a letter.
Usually, you have to do three things in your
letter.
You have 20 minutes and you need to write
at least 150 words.
In this lesson, you’ll see how to plan and
write an effective general task 1 IELTS answer.
You’ll learn simple strategies you can use
to write a better answer and improve your
IELTS writing score.
Let’s start by looking at a sample question:
Your neighbour has been making a lot of noise
recently.
This has been causing you problems, and you
want to ask them to stop.
Write a letter to your neighbour.
In your letter:
- ask for an explanation for the noise
- explain the problems this has caused for
you
- say what will happen if the problem is not
solved
Pause the video if you want more time to look
at the question.
Let’s begin by looking at what you need
to think about before you write.
Planning for IELTS general task one answers
is easier than for other IELTS writing tasks.
All general task one questions have the same
structure.
This means that your answer can have the same
structure every time.
The question asks you to do three things.
Each point can go in its own paragraph.
So, your answer will have three short paragraphs,
like this:
Then, you need a short introduction.
For this question, you can just write a single
sentence to explain why you’re writing,
like this:
I am writing to complain about the noise levels
coming from your apartment in recent weeks.
The introduction might be different in other
tasks.
For example, if you’re writing to a friend,
you’d write something much simpler.
There is one more thing you need to think
about when planning: tone.
When we say ‘tone’, we mean how formal
or informal your letter should be.
Task one of the general IELTS writing exam
is the only place where tone is clearly mentioned
in the scoring scheme.
You need to write in an appropriate tone,
and your tone needs to be consistent.
What tone do you think you need here?
Should your letter be formal, neutral, or
informal?
Probably, your letter will be somewhere between
neutral and formal.
You’re writing to your neighbour, so you
don’t need to be incredibly formal, but
you’re also writing to complain, which adds
formality.
In our experience, one of the most common
mistakes with task one answers is not getting
the tone right.
Either candidates choose an inappropriate
level of formality, or they mix different
levels in the same answer.
Both of these mistakes will hurt your score.
So, before you write anything, think about
how formal your letter should be.
Now, you have a plan; let’s write our first
paragraph!
Look at the beginning of a letter:
Dear Emily,
How’s it going?
I’m actually writing because I have some
issues with noise coming from your apartment.
I would like to demand an explanation for
the noise levels.
I mean, what on earth are you doing that’s
so noisy?
I can hardly have a conversation with someone
sitting next to me, because it’s so loud.
Please inform me what is occurring.
Pause the video if you want more time to look
at the answer.
Think about whether this is good, or whether
it needs some work.
There’s a problem with this beginning.
Do you know what it is?
The problem is tone.
As you heard before, it’s a common mistake
to mix formal and informal language.
Here, you can see very formal sentences, like:
I would like to demand an explanation for
the noise levels.
You can also see more informal language, like:
I mean, what on earth are you doing that’s
so noisy?
The start of the letter also mixes different
levels of formality.
Writing how’s it going? is a more informal
way to start a letter or an email, but if
you’re writing to complain, you would almost
certainly need to use a more neutral or formal
tone.
To get a high score in the general IELTS writing
exam, you need to write in a consistent tone.
If you want to practice, think about how you
could improve the answer you saw before.
You can pause the video, and start again when
you’re ready.
Let’s see how you could improve this answer:
Pause the video if you need more time to read.
You can see that we’ve got rid of some of
the more informal language, like how’s it
going?
This is also better because it’s consistent
without being too formal.
Our original answer included very formal language,
like Please inform me what is occurring.
You don’t get more points for being more
formal; you get a high score by writing in
an appropriate and consistent tone.
Next, let’s continue by thinking about use
of language in your answer.
Task one of the general IELTS writing exam
is the simplest of all the IELTS writing tasks.
This is an advantage, but it also means you
need to think carefully about using a wide
range of language.
Let’s look at this by adding another paragraph
to our model answer:
This situation is having a bad effect on my
entire family.
I have been unable to sleep, because of the
loud noises even late at night.
My son complains that he cannot do his homework.
Even our dog has been behaving oddly; she
is not eating well and has no energy.
This is a good paragraph, and the use of language
is already good.
However, to get higher scores, you would need
to use a wider range of language.
Let’s do two things here.
First, look at the five underlined words and
phrases.
Can you change these words and phrases to
make them more detailed and more specific?
Think about it—you’ll see some possible
answers in a minute.
Your second job is to take two sentences and
combine them into a more complex sentence.
There’s more than one way you could do this,
so find an idea which makes sense to you.
Think about your answers now.
Pause the video if you need more time.
Ready?
Let’s look:
You can see that you don’t need to make
big changes.
A lot of students think that you need to use
a lot of very academic language to get high
scores in IELTS.
You don’t.
To get high scores—even band 9—you need
to use a range of language with flexibility
and precision.
That might include academic language in some
cases, but for a letter, that wouldn’t be
appropriate.
Collocations are very important for your IELTS
vocabulary score.
Using collocations like sleep properly, noise
levels, lose your appetite, or focus on your
homework will boost your vocabulary score.
For grammar, we simply connected two sentences
with the conjunction while.
This adds variety to the sentence structures,
which will also help your score.
At this point, you need to write one more
paragraph.
Here, you’re going to see how you can connect
your ideas more effectively.
There’s a common problem we see with IELTS
writing in our students.
Students often plan each paragraph separately.
Then, they write each paragraph as a separate
unit, and the paragraphs don’t have much
connection to each other.
This will hurt your score; 25 per cent of
your score is for coherence and cohesion.
To get a higher score for coherence and cohesion,
your writing needs to have a clear progression.
That means it needs to have a clear beginning,
middle, and end.
Let’s look at a final paragraph which doesn’t
handle this well:
I must ask you to reduce the amount of noise
you make, and try to keep quiet during the
evening when we are at home.
If you continue making noise at these levels,
I will have no choice but to make a noise
complaint to the police and/or to the city
council.
Regards,
Samira
Pause the video if you want more time to read
the paragraph.
This is not bad, but it doesn’t include
any links or references to the other points
you’ve made in the letter.
It also lacks a concluding phrase, which could
provide a strong, clear end to your letter.
Let’s see how you could improve this:
Can you see what’s changed?
Pause the video to read.
There are four changes.
First, we made a reference to the first paragraph,
then we added a reference to the second paragraph.
We also avoided repetition by adding a reference
to ‘this situation’, instead of talking
about noise levels again.
Finally, we added a concluding phrase.
And you’ve finished!
Practice these steps and ideas and you should
be able to get a high score in task one of
the general IELTS exam.
Here’s a question for you: what do you find
most difficult in task one of the general
IELTS writing exam?
Please let us know in the comments.
You can see the full text of the model answer
on our website: Oxford Online English dot
com.
Look for a link in the video description if
you’re watching on YouTube.
Thanks for watching!
See you next time!