IELTS Task 1 Map Samples: Band 6, 6.5 and 7 Compared (Part 3 of 3): Side-by-Side Comparison, Rewrites and a Checklist

5. All three side by side: the key to TA in map questions

Laid out like this, the TA score looks almost like a countdown of errors and omissions: a wrong overview plus location errors got 5, no errors but two missing changes and a vague overview got 6, and nothing missing with every location right got 7. It is the same pattern I saw in my process diagram essays: in Task 1, accuracy and completeness matter more for TA than any sentence pattern.

Tenses for map questions

Both the hospital and the harbour essays slip into the present tense in paragraphs about the past (“people can go”, “there are two spaces”). This kind of error is very common in GRA 6 essays. Decide which tense each map needs before you start, then check the verbs once more, specifically, after you finish.

Three minutes before writing: make a list of changes

After comparing these three essays, I think the most effective preparation for a map question is to jot down a quick “list of changes” before you start writing (I did mine in Chinese, but any language works). For the hospital question, it would look something like this:

Once the list is done, what to put in the overview becomes obvious: most of the “new” items are transport facilities (two roundabouts, a bus station), and the “change of use” is the car park being split. Every row is also something the body has to cover, so you can tick each one off after writing and nothing gets missed. If I had made this table at the time, I would never have written an overview claiming “there were only cars in 2007”, which contradicts the map, and I would have checked where the roundabouts were while making the list.

The table also helps you decide the order of the body. I suggest following a spatial order, such as “from the entrance inwards” or “from north to south”. The sports centre essay goes from the two sides of the entrance to the west side and then to the east side, so the examiner feels as if they are walking round with you.

6. Rewrite: overview plus one body paragraph

Hospital: overview

What changed: I deleted the wrong claim that there were only cars in 2007 and instead named the three main changes directly (roundabouts, bus station, separate car parks). If an overview can name two or three specific changes, TA can usually move beyond 5 or 6.

Hospital: the 2010 body paragraph

Harbour: overview plus the “today” body paragraph

The overview goes from “there have been lots of changes” to “it has become more tourism-focused; the main changes are A, B and C, while D and E stay the same”. The body adds the showers and toilets and the extended road that my original left out, and every change is in the present perfect.

Sports centre: an overview aiming for Band 8

7. Map question framework, checklist and practice

The map rules from my notes

• One paragraph, one time period: do not split the essay into a left half and a right half.
• Old information + new information: when describing a change, say what was there first and then what it became (The area that once housed A now accommodates B).
• Start each paragraph with its main idea: for example, Regarding the layout today, After the redevelopment.
• Use the last sentence for what does not change: Finally, no changes will be made to ….

Ways to describe change

Checklist after writing

• □ Have I compared the two maps item by item and listed every change? Is each one in the essay?
• □ Does the overview name two or three specific changes? Does it get anything wrong about either map?
• □ If there is a compass, have I used north / south / east / west rather than left / right?
• □ To describe what a place looked like in a given year, have I used there was / was located rather than was built?
• □ Are the tenses for the two maps consistent with their time relationship?
• □ Have I said which parts do not change?
• □ Have I avoided subjective pronouns such as we and you? (Task 1 does not use them.)

Practice

1. Take a map question and, without writing the essay, just list all the changes in note form (including what stays the same), in whatever language is quickest for you. Count how many there are. When you write the essay later, tick them off one by one.
2. Rewrite the second body paragraph of my harbour essay (today’s harbour), adding the two missing changes and putting everything in the present perfect.
3. Find one question for each of the three time relationships (past → past, past → present, present → future) and write only the overview, with a three-minute limit, to practise switching tenses.

Map questions are where it is easiest to think “but I did write everything”. Once you compare the two maps item by item, though, you usually find you have missed more than one thing. From the hospital essay’s TA 5 to the sports centre’s TA 7, my level of English was really about the same in all three; the difference was whether the changes were complete and the locations correct. I recommend listing the changes before you write and ticking them off afterwards. I hope comparing these three essays helps you spot your own blind spots faster.

Further reading

• How to check your IELTS sub-scores: the four scores your results page does not show (in Chinese)
• My successful IDP re-mark: Writing from 6.5 to 7.0 (in Chinese)
• Review of my tutor Ali: simplifying my essay structure (400 → 300 words) (in Chinese)
• Farid, a former examiner: live feedback on speaking and writing (in Chinese)
• Overview of all my IELTS notes (in Chinese)