- The structure is very important, to achieve high marks you should have an introduction, body paragraph 1 and body paragraph 2, a conclusion is not necessary for task 1.
- Introduction: The first sentence is paraphrasing the question, don’t use exact words, use synonyms and rearrange. The second sentence would be the overview. The overview should be written in 2, maximum 3 lines and shouldn’t take you more than 5 minutes to write. If you don’t have an overview, you can only score a maximum of 5.
- An overview is a very brief summary that highlights the key points, mort important trends and differences of features.
- You must be able to use a range of cohesive devices appropriately which are words/phrases that connect your ideas and sentences. Examiner wants to see less common ones and doesn’t want you to just list your ideas about what’s happening, you need to show the relationship between them showing why you have selected those facts.
Table of less common cohesive devices, try to incorporate them not only at the beginning of your sentence, try to incorporate them within. This will make you stand out.
| Simple | Less Common |
| Firstly/ first of all | To begin with, First and foremost |
| However | Conversely, In contrast, In spite of / Despite this |
| Similarly | Likewise, By the same token |
| Moreover/ in addition | Furthermore, What is more |
| For example | For instance, To illustrate, One example of this is |
| In conclusion | To sum up, On the whole |
- Not just at the beginning of the sentence, can often be used within
- “Strict punishments, on the other hand, are not…
- “This solution, in addition, can help with public health”
- “That, however, is not an effective solution to the problem.”
- Try and use different words and phrases rather than repeating the same words over and over again. E.g. the number – the figure
- Having a less common vocabulary is very important and will make you stand out from the crowd, just make sure you understand the word properly and can use it to express your ideas correctly. A good website to help expand your vocabulary is visuwords.com.
- Don’t spend more than 20 minutes on task 1 and read all of the information carefully.