hi there it's Asiya what's the difference between a conclusion and an overview and which one do you
need in your ielts academic writing task one that's our question for today let's get started
at school we've learned that every essay should have a conclusion ielts writing is no different in
your conclusion you should do three things first of all you should link back to the essay question
and briefly restate your main points then you should express your opinion of course
if it's required not all ielts topics require an opinion and finally you should give a final
recommendation or forecast this is an optional point so what about your academic task 1 the
task is to describe several charts maps a table or a diagram and i know that sometimes we call it
task 1 essay and i don't really mind the word but strictly speaking it's not an essay it's a report
and just like in any report you don't need a conclusion what you need is an overview what is an
overview well that's a very short summary of the main features of your charts maps tables diagrams
it should be one or two sentences long let me show you an example the task is the charts below
show the average consumption of three nutrients by adults in the uk all of these nutrients may
be unhealthy if eaten too much summarize the information by selecting and reporting
the main features and make comparisons where relevant write at least 150 words
let's have a look at our charts daily consumption of sodium saturated fat and added sugar by adults
in the uk below you can see three pie charts the first is sodium the second is saturated fat
and the third is sugar each chart shows what percentage of the nutrient is consumed with each
meal breakfast lunch dinner and snacks during your exam you should take three to five minutes to read
and analyze your task and plan your report i want you to read this task carefully and
think what you would write in your overview please pause the video now and resume once you are ready
okay let's continue let me show you my overview overall this is a standard word used to show that
this is your overview the first two meals of the day eaten by adults in the uk are
relatively balanced and healthy whereas dinner contains the most sodium and saturated fat
most of the added sugar is in snack foods you see this overview gives the big picture the summary
of the most important information from all the charts it's not too long and it doesn't give
any unnecessary details and consists of two sentences if you're surprised to see the word
foods as plural this is because in this case we're talking about different kinds of food and in
this meaning the word food is countable different types of snacks or different types of snack foods
as for our overview i've taken it from my sample task 1 video and if you'd like to see
the full answer and hear the explanation of how it was written watch this video it's linked in
the video description box below let's continue why there is some confusion between an overview
and a conclusion here is one of the reasons we always write a conclusion at the end of our task
2 essay right the thing is you may write your overview at the end of your task one report too
actually there are two possible places to write your overview after your introduction
or even in the same paragraph together with your introduction and at the end of your report
it's up to you to choose which one you prefer but there is one thing for you to consider if you find
it difficult to finish both tasks in 60 minutes as indeed most people do then it's safer to write
your overview right after your introduction this is because of the way your task is assessed your
overview is seen as a very important part of task 1. if there is no overview you'll be penalized
your task achievement score will go down and task achievement is the first of the four criteria that
ielts examiners use to assess your answers and it weighs 25 percent of your score
never miss an overview in task 1 and never miss a conclusion in task 2.
if you're running out of time shorten your body paragraphs instead to summarize because
the overview is so important i suggest writing it straight after your introduction
of course your overview is just a small part of your task 1 report you need to analyze your
task find what those key features are find a way to logically group your data into paragraphs get
rid of all the unimportant details that actually hurt your score choose the correct verb tenses
and so on and you can learn how to do all this for each type of academic task one in my online course
it's linked in the corner and in the video description box below and the full sample for
the task we used in this video is gonna be on the screen and also in the video description box below
thank you for watching me today good luck with your preparation and your exam