Task 1: Writing the Overview
What an overview is
Two or three sentences, straight after the introduction, containing no specific figures.
The overview is where you stand back and say what the data does as a whole. It is not a conclusion, it does not belong at the end, and it does not contain numbers. Numbers are evidence; the overview is the claim the evidence supports.
It is the single most reliable difference between a band 6 answer and a band 7 answer. Everything else - vocabulary, grammar, paragraphing - takes months to move. This takes one lesson.
Why it caps your score
Task Achievement asks whether you summarised the information and selected the main features. An answer with no overview has not summarised anything - it has reported. However accurate the figures and however good the English, that criterion cannot reach the top bands without one.
And because the four criteria are averaged, one capped criterion pulls the whole Writing score down. This is why an answer can be fluent, well-spelled, error-free and still come back at band 6.
Find the overview in this graph
Ignore the individual values. What are the two biggest things happening here?
Three overviews, same graph
Too vague - could describe almost any graph
Overall, there were a lot of changes in the three energy sources over the period, and some went up while others went down.
Better - but it is a list of directions, not a pattern
Overall, coal fell over the period, renewables rose, and natural gas increased before falling slightly at the end.
Strong - it names what the graph is actually about
Overall, the period saw a complete reversal between coal and renewables: the source that supplied almost half of all electricity at the start had become the smallest by 2024, while the smallest had become the largest. Natural gas changed far less, remaining the middle source throughout.
The test that tells you if it works
Read your overview aloud with the graph covered. Could a listener sketch the rough shape of it from your words alone?
For the third version they could: two lines swapping places, one flat-ish line in the middle. For the first version they could draw nothing at all - which is exactly why it earns nothing.
A second test: could your overview be pasted onto a different graph without changing a word? If yes, it is not describing this one.
What to look for, by chart type
The overview is always the same question - what is the big picture - but the answer lives in a different place depending on what you are given.
- Line graph - the overall direction, and any crossover where the ranking changes.
- Bar chart - the highest and lowest, and whether one group behaves differently from the rest.
- Pie charts - what dominates each chart, and what changed rank between them.
- Table - the biggest and smallest figures, and the row or column that breaks the pattern.
- Process diagram - how many stages, where it starts and ends, and whether it is a cycle or a line.
- Map - what kind of change happened overall: expansion, replacement, or a shift in function.
The rules, short version
- Second paragraph, straight after the introduction. Never at the end.
- Two or three sentences. Rarely more.
- No specific figures. If you need a number to make the point, the point belongs in the body.
- Start it with a marker - Overall, In general, The most striking feature is - so the examiner cannot miss it.
- Write it before the body paragraphs. It decides how you group them.
Where to go next
- See overviews inside three complete answers at different bands: Task 1: Line Graphs.
- The paragraph before this one: Writing the Introduction.
- Deciding what belongs in the overview at all: Selecting the Main Features.
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