IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 - Process diagram questions

Автор: Lesley-ann Green, оновлено October 15th, 2026

This lesson is part of our IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 and 2 guide and the IELTS Writing Task 1 and 2 guide.

A process diagram shows you how something is made or how something happens, step by step. In IELTS Academic Writing Task 1, it's the one visual with no numbers to compare, so many candidates aren't sure what "main features" means here. The answer is the stages: how many there are, where the process starts and ends, and how one step leads to the next. On this page you'll learn what process tasks look like, how to structure and score your report, the sequencing language and passive forms you need, and the mistakes to avoid. Then you can practise with nine real process diagram questions, each with a model answer.

What a Process Diagram Task Looks Like
How to Structure Your Process Report
Process Diagrams Lesson
How Your Process Report Is Scored
Useful Language for Processes
Common Mistakes on Process Diagram Tasks
What Our Learners' Task 1 Reports Show
Practise and Get a Band Score
IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 - Process Diagram Questions

What a Process Diagram Task Looks Like

Process diagrams fall into two groups, and the difference affects the grammar you'll use:

A man-made process. How milk is produced, how plastic is recycled, how electricity is generated. People or machines carry out each step, so you'll use the passive voice for most of it: "the bottles are collected", "the plastic is melted down".
A natural cycle. The life cycle of a frog, the water cycle, how flowering plants grow. Nobody performs these steps, so you'll use more active verbs: "the eggs hatch", "the water evaporates". A cycle also has no real start or end, so you'll need to choose a sensible starting point.

Some tasks combine the two (the silkworm's life cycle and the production of silk, for example), or show two different methods side by side. Either way, start by counting the stages and finding where the process begins. Those two facts will become your overview.

How to Structure Your Process Report

You can use the same four-paragraph plan as for any other Task 1 visual. With a process, you split the stages instead of grouping data:

Introduction: paraphrase the task in one sentence. "The diagram shows the process by which…" becomes "The diagram illustrates the stages involved in…".
Overview: say how many stages there are, and where the process begins and ends (or that it's a continuous cycle). Don't give any details here.
Body paragraph 1: the first half of the stages, in order.
Body paragraph 2: the remaining stages, ending with the final product or the point where the cycle starts again.

Find a natural place to break the process in two, such as the point where the raw material becomes a product, or where an egg becomes an adult. That makes your two body paragraphs feel balanced and logical.

IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 - Process Diagrams

How Your Process Report Is Scored

Task achievement. You cover every stage, in the right order, with an overview that summarizes the whole process. Leaving out a stage is the quickest way to lose marks here.
Coherence and cohesion. Your sequencing language makes the order clear, and each stage connects to the next. This is the criterion where process reports gain or lose the most.
Lexical resource. You use the labels on the diagram accurately and paraphrase them where you can, without changing their meaning.
Grammatical range and accuracy. You use the present passive correctly and combine short steps into longer sentences with "after", "once" and "which".

Useful Language for Processes

What you need	Useful language	Example
The first stage	first, to begin with, the process starts with, in the initial stage	To begin with, raw milk is collected from the farm.
The next stage	next, then, after that, following this, subsequently	Following this, the milk is heated to kill bacteria.
Two things at once	at the same time, meanwhile, simultaneously	Meanwhile, the waste water is pumped to a separate tank.
Joining two steps	once, after, as soon as, before + -ing	Once the bottles have been sorted, they are crushed.
The last stage	finally, in the final stage, the process ends with	Finally, the cheese is packaged and sent to shops.
A cycle	the cycle then begins again, this is repeated	The adult frog lays eggs, and the cycle begins again.

For man-made processes, form the passive with "is" or "are" and the past participle: "is filtered", "are transported". Use "which" to join steps: "The plastic is melted down, which produces small pellets." Try not to start every sentence with "Then": varying your sequencers is an easy way to lift your coherence score.

Common Mistakes on Process Diagram Tasks

Missing a stage. Count the stages before you write and tick them off as you go. A process with a gap in it doesn't make sense to the reader.
No overview. Without one, your report is just a list of steps. Say how many stages there are and how the process begins and ends.
Active verbs for a man-made process. "The factory heats the milk" puts the focus in the wrong place. "The milk is heated" is what the examiner expects.
Copying every label word for word. Use the diagram's technical terms, but build your own sentences around them.
Repeating "then" and "next". Use the full range of sequencers in the table above.
Adding information that isn't there. Don't explain why a step happens or what it's for unless the diagram tells you.

What Our Learners' Task 1 Reports Show

How do candidates actually score on Academic Task 1? Across the reports BestMyTest tutors scored, including process diagrams, the average bands were 5.8 for task achievement, 5.8 for coherence and cohesion, 5.8 for vocabulary and 5.4 for grammar. Grammatical range and accuracy was the lowest of the four.

In our AI reviews, Grammatical range and accuracy was the lowest-scoring criterion in 82% of reports. For a process diagram, the best protection is a clear overview and a full set of stages, joined with varied sequencing language.

Reports averaged 177 words, and 11% were too short. Process diagrams with only a few stages are where short reports happen most, so make sure each stage gets a full sentence rather than a few words.

The three things our review corrects most often are punctuation, articles and spelling. In a process report, check every passive form ("is heated", not "is heat") and the singular or plural verb after each subject.

Practise and Get a Band Score

The best way to get comfortable with process diagrams is to write a few. Choose one of the nine questions below, write your report in 20 minutes, and submit it in our IELTS app for an instant AI band score and feedback on each criterion. Then compare your answer with the model. If passive forms or linking words keep showing up in your feedback, our AI Tutor has short grammar and coherence exercises to fix them.

IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 - Process Diagram Questions

Below are nine process diagram questions, from milk production and plastic recycling to the life cycles of frogs and silkworms. Write a report for each one, then use the button to practise it in our app and view the model answer.

The diagram shows the process by which milk and related products are produced.