IELTS writing topics: Academic Part 1 visuals and Part 2 themes

IELTS Academic Writing Part 1 is a graph, table, chart or diagram that you describe in at least 150 words in about 20 minutes, and IELTS says all the information you require is given, so no outside knowledge is needed. Part 2 is an essay on a general-interest topic. IDP says no one can predict the questions, so practise recurring themes.

IELTS.org calls the two Academic Writing tasks Part 1 and Part 2, and the Task 1 and Task 2 names are the same thing. When people search for Academic Writing Part 1, they mean the graph, table, chart or diagram.

The format page gives the length and time for Part 1, and one fact about it that matters for topics.

That last line changes how to think about topics. For Part 1, you do not need to know anything about the subject. The data is in front of you. IDP says the same.

Our reading: ‘explain’ in IELTS.org's wording means saying what the data shows. IDP's own task achievement article says the task relates narrowly to the factual content of the visual, not to speculative explanations that lie outside the given data.

For Part 2, IDP says the topics are of general interest, even in the Academic test.

IDP's articles on the graph and diagram task give example prompts for every kind of visual. Here they are side by side. They are IDP's examples, not ours, and they are not a list of live questions.

Look at the subjects across the table: media, education, population, weight, how people get to work, languages, sport, energy, a town centre, a hospital, transport and the evolution of an animal. Our reading: they are all ordinary, public-interest subjects that need no special knowledge, because the visual supplies the facts. What the examiner reads for is how you select, compare and summarise.

The scenarios below are ours. Each one describes a visual that does not exist, so you will need to make the data yourself or find a similar one in a newspaper or report. They are practice material, not predictions, and they do not come from any past test.

Make your own practice data

Writing about a visual is easier to practise when you have built one. Here is a way to do it in ten minutes.

1. Pick a scenario above and a visual type.
2. Choose three to five categories and two to four time points or groups.
3. Make the numbers tell a story: one clear highest, one clear lowest, one change that is large and one that is small, and one pair that crosses over.
4. Check that percentages in a pie add up to 100.
5. Put it in a simple table in a notebook or a spreadsheet. Do not draw it beautifully. Look at it as a reader would.

A tiny table to try

This table is invented, for practice. The question is: describe how people travel to work in a fictional city, as percentages, in three years.

Before you write, answer five questions: What is the biggest category in each year? What fell? What rose? Which two are close to each other? What would you say in one sentence if you had no numbers?

Our note, not a model answer: the one sentence is the overview. For this table it might say that car use falls while bus, train and bicycle use all grow. It includes no numbers, because the overview summarises the picture and the main features hold the figures.

IDP will not tell you what the next question is, and says so.

Its article on common Task 2 topics describes five of the themes.

IDP also says that an Academic question looks at a topic more specifically or with a narrower focus than a General Training one. For practice, that means you should work on narrow aspects of each theme, not the theme as a whole. The table is ours.

Ten themes, their aspects and a question for each

Every question below is ours and none comes from a past test.

A list of topics is only useful if you do something with each one. IDP gives four strategies, and its vocabulary article gives a method for building the second.

• Stay informed by reading the news to become familiar with these recurring themes and associated vocabulary.
• Develop a vocabulary bank specific to each topic and practise using it in various contexts.
• Practise writing essays on these topics to build confidence and enhance your ability to use advanced, topic-specific vocabulary.
• Familiarise yourself with essay types (opinion, discussion, advantages/disadvantages, problems/solutions) to prepare for various question formats.

IDP asks you to ask yourself questions about each topic. Six of its eight are below.

• What are the common words connected to this topic?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of this topic area?
• What does the government do to support this topic area?
• Are there any future developments that might happen in this topic area?
• What other topic areas might be linked to this topic area?
• Are there some good (recent/famous) examples of this topic area?

And IDP gives a list of topic areas to build mind maps for. Some of the entries are below.

• learning and education.
• leisure and entertainment.
• crime and punishment.
• sport and competition.
• modern lifestyles and societal changes.
• traditions and customs.
• fashion and advertising.
• tourism and travel.
• health and diet.
• the environment.
• the internet.

An idea card, worked once

Our own card for one theme. Use the same six boxes for any theme. The notes are ours.

A weekly rhythm

1. One day for a Part 1 visual: describe it in twenty minutes.
2. One day for a Part 2 question: plan it, then write it in forty minutes.
3. One day to fill a new idea card for a theme you have not done.
4. One day to reread your Part 1 and Part 2 answers and fix the errors on your list.

For our model essays and structure, see IELTS essay samples and Task 2 structure. For the graph and diagram guide, see IELTS Academic Writing guide for graphs and diagrams. For the sample question and scripts the owners publish, see below.

Common questions