IELTS Tips

How to Easily Double Your Task 1 Vocabulary

Getting your target band score for the IELTS Writing Task 1 requires using language in a sophisticated way. Essentially, there are two really important factors:

Use language accurately
Avoid repetition

How can you do that? Thankfully, you don’t need a vocabulary of thousands of words to describe trends. With a little practice, you can master the necessary vocabulary to describe dozens of trends and also learn to vary that language at the same time! How? Look at the tables below:

Verb	Noun
to rise	a rise
to fall	a fall
to increase	an increase
to decrease	a decrease
to dip	a dip
to fluctuate	a fluctuation
to recover	a recovery

Adjective	Adverb
slight	slightly
sharp	sharply
gradual	gradually
steady	steadily
dramatic	dramatically
noticeable	noticeably

How to Use?

Many of the words you need to use in the IELTS Writing Task 1 to describe trends actually have two forms. Many verbs can be converted into a noun, and many adjectives can be converted into an adverb. Then you just need to pair the adjectives with a noun or an adverb with a verb!

Look at these examples:

adjective/noun

There was a gradual increase in prices…

adverb/verb

Prices gradually increased….

David S. Wills

David S. Wills is the author of Scientologist! William S. Burroughs and the 'Weird Cult' and the founder/editor of Beatdom literary journal. He lives and works in rural Cambodia and loves to travel. He has worked as an IELTS tutor since 2010, has completed both TEFL and CELTA courses, and has a certificate from Cambridge for Teaching Writing. David has worked in many different countries, and for several years designed a writing course for the University of Worcester. In 2018, he wrote the popular IELTS handbook, Grammar for IELTS Writing and he has since written two other books about IELTS. His other IELTS website is called IELTS Teaching.