Useful Vocabulary for IELTS- Writing Task 1
Lexical Resource is one of the four criteria used to assess your writing and it comprises of 25% of your writing score. In order to achieve a good score in this criterion, it is essential that you demonstrate your ability to use a wide range of vocabulary appropriately and correctly.
Vocabulary is more than just correct spellings. Task 1 requires you to describe different types of diagram and you will require a wide range of specific and appropriate vocabulary to describe the key changes and trends in the diagram.
Adjectives and Adverbs
We use adjectives and adverbs to record changes in data in different diagrams in the Task 1. ‘Adjectives are words that describe or modify nouns’ and ‘Adverbs are words that describe or modify verbs or adjectives’. Adverbs can be generally formed by adding ‘ly’ to the end of the adjective. For instance, significant (adj.) can be added with ‘ly’ to form the word significantly (adv.).
There are various adjectives and adverbs that can be used to describe large changes and small or moderate changes and learning some them can be a really great help.
Common words used to describe large changes are: significant/ significantly, steep/ steeply, rapid/ rapidly, dramatic/ dramatically, considerable/ considerably etc.
Common words used to describe small or moderate changes are: slight/ slightly, slow/ slowly, marginal/ marginally, gradual/ gradually, steady/ steadily etc.
Verbs and Nouns
Additionally, you will also need some verbs and nouns to write about the changes in the trends in Task 1. ‘Verbs are words that describe and action or state’ and ‘Nouns are words that refer to a thing, a place, a person or a quality’.
Some verbs to describe an upward movement are: to increase, to rise, to improve, to climb, to peak etc. and some nouns are: an increase, a rise, an improvement, a climb, a peak etc.
Some verbs to describe a downward movement are: to decrease, to fall, to decline, to drop, to dip, to plummet etc. and some nouns are: a decrease, a decline, a drop, a dip etc.
There are also verbs to describe both upward and downward movement such as, to fluctuate, to vary, and nouns such as, a fluctuation, a variation etc.
There are verbs to describe no change or little change such as to remain the same/ unchanged/ static, to stabilize, to level out etc. and you could use ‘a period of stability’ as a noun to describe the same.
Collocations
It is also important that you use correct collocation to achieve a good score as the marking criteria clearly mentions its correct use.
Many of the verbs, adverbs, adjectives and nouns can be put together to form collocations to describe the changes in the trends. You could combine a verb with an adverb and an adjective with a noun. For instance, increased (verb) + significantly (adverb) or, a dramatic (adjective) + improvement (noun).
Percentages, Proportions and Approximations
There are various ways you could write about data in the Writing Task 1. Using approximations such as approximately, almost, nearly, around etc. are very common. Additionally to write about more or less, you could simply use more than, well over, just above/ over, a little more than or, less than, well below, just below/ under, slightly less than etc.
You could express percentages as follows:
6%- a small proportion
23%- just under a quarter
27%- approximately a quarter
48%- almost a half
50%- exactly a half
53%- more than half
72%- slightly less than three quarters
77%- roughly three quarters
85%- well over three quarters
96%- a significant majority
All in all, these are some useful vocabulary for the Writing Task 1. However, it’s very important that you select words carefully and always make sure you use the correct tense when using verbs.
REMEMBER, PRACTICE IS THE KEY!
