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1. The food chain

Looking at the central part of the diagram, I see a row of arrows pointing downwards. This shows how carbon from theatmosphere is used by plants and animals. It is, if you look closely, a food chain. The atmosphere provides CO2 to plantswhich are eaten by insects which are eaten by small animals which are then eaten by larger animals. All I have to do now isput this into decent English, trying not to repeat the language of the diagram too much.

2. Return of CO2 to the atmosphereThe second part of the cycle is quite straight forward. There are on either side a set of arrows pointing upwards to show thereturn of CO2 to the atmosphere. This shows me that respiration, fuel consumption and waste products are the 3 ways inwhich CO2 returns to the atmosphere to complete the cycle.

Thinking vocabularyThis diagram gives you a certain of language. You have the choice of whether to repeat it in your description or try and varyit. What you do here will depend on how well you understand the diagram and the words. It is not an absolute disaster inthis task if you do repeat some of the words from the diagram as they are technical terms. You should, however, try andfind alternatives for the more general English words.carbon dioxide: no alternativeatmosphere: no alternativeterrestrial and aquatic: either repeat the words, or if you understand them try “land and water”primary, secondary, tertiary: these mean first, second and third levelconsumers: try the word “eat” or vary it to “consume” or “consumption”respiration: this means “breathing”

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Read my sample descript ion

This diagram shows how the carbon cycle works in nature. The first part of the cycle is providing plants and animals on bothland and sea with the carbon dioxide they need to exist and the second part of the cycle is the return of carbon dioxide tothe atmosphere.

The first part of the cycle shows a food chain where plants and grasses absorb carbon dioxide from the air. These plantsare a food source for primary consumers such as insects which are in turn eaten by the second level consumers, includingsmaller birds and fish. At the end of this food chain are larger animals and mammals which use the secondary levelconsumers as a source of carbon and food.

The second part of the cycle shows how there are two main ways in which carbon dioxide is returned to the atmosphere.This can either happen as a result of living beings breathing or consuming fuel, or as a product of the waste and remainsfrom their death.

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IELTS writing task 1 – process diagramsThe process diagram is in many ways the odd one out in academic task 1 and it requires some different language from theother task types. This lesson shows you some of the skills you need to tackle a process diagram. In it, I talk you throughsome of the difficulties in describing a process and suggest some basic techniques to help you understand the diagram andwrite the description. You will also find a sample task and description.

Reading a process diagram – find the beginnings and endsThe first step in learning to write about a process diagram is to see where the process starts and ends. Sometimes it isevident, frequently it is less so. This is important information as it will help structure your writing. The obvious thing to do is

to start at the beginning and carry on until you get to the end. An example

Where is the beginning here? The customer pays by credit card (item 1). Where is the end? The merchant receives hismoney (item 7). We now know part of the structure of our report.

Understand the diff erent st ages of the processThe next point is to try and understand how the process works. Typically, there will be some problem in understanding thediagram: it is not always the case that everything is in a natural order. The key is to stop and think and look. This is a visual

task and you need to look at all the visual clues. What you are looking for are normally simple things. It is often a good ideato ask yourself the WH questions.In the diagram above, we see the following details:

• there are 5 parties involved (the pictures) (WHO)• there are 7 stages in the process (the numbers) (HOW MANY)• some of the arrows point in two different directions– this needs to be explained• item 4 seems to be out of order as it is next to 1

Find a way of organising your descrip tionThis is another thinking task. Before you start writing, you want to see if there is some way to organise your report intoparagraphs. This is not absolutely essential but it can help the organisation of your writing. In the diagram above, theredoes seem to be a logical solution, as the process falls in to two parts:

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1. the customer receives his goods2. the merchant gets his money

As thisis the case, I am going to do the logical thing and divide my description into two main paragraphs. One to describethe authorisation process until the customer gets his/her money and one for the payment process until the merchant is paid.

The introduction and conclusionThis is a key part of your description. What you need to do here is to give the examiner an overall view of the process.

Again, you want to ask yourself questions, such as:• what happens as a result of this process?•

is there any change involved?• how many stages are there in this process?• is there one simple process or are there variations within the process?

Typically, you will either write a longer introduction or add a conclusion. You will not normally need both an extendedintroduction and conclusion.

The language of the descript ionTopic languageThe process will normally be an everyday event that everyone is familiar with, you should not need any specialisedlanguage. Sometimes, as in this example, you will be given some topic vocabulary. If you are, be careful of two points:

1. try to vary the language if you can, but don’t worry too much if you can’t. It may be that the language you are givenis the correct topic language and there are no, or few, variations

2. don’t copy language incorrectly. If you are given a verb, you may need to change it into a noun

Sequencing languageSome of the most important language you need is vocabulary to say in what order things happen. It is important to havesome variation here. Some very basic options are:

• next• then• after • before• once

See this download for an explanation of this language: Sequencing language for process diagrams (37434)Passives

A key grammatical area is veryoften the passive. We use this when it is not important who “does” the action. So, if youhave a process diagram showing the making of wine, you may choose to write:the grapes are crushed and their stems are removedPut simply, we make the passive by taking part of the verb “to be” and adding the 3rd form of the verb.

This diagram shows the different stages in the process of making a purchase with a credit card. We can see that it is acomplex transaction with no fewer than five different parties involved and there are seven different steps until the merchareceives payment.The first step is that the customer offers to pay for the goods by credit card. At that point, the merchant has to request fthe payment to be authorised by the credit card organisation, which must also request authorisation in turn from th

consumer’s bank. Once that authorisation has been received, the merchant can then release the goods to the customer.The merchant, however, does not receive the money for the transaction until it has paid a fee to the credit carorganisation. After that has been paid, the consumer’s issuing bank will transfer the money for the transaction to thmerchant’s own bank, which will then credit the merchant’s bank account with the amount of thepurchase less the credcard fee. (168)