Task 1: Timing and Word Count

The budget

Sixty minutes for the Writing test. Task 1 should take about twenty of them.

The twenty minutes is a recommendation, not a rule the test enforces - nobody stops you writing. But Task 2 carries more weight in the Writing score, so every extra minute spent on Task 1 is taken from the task that matters more. Overrunning on Task 1 is one of the most expensive habits in the whole exam.

The other reason to hold the line is that Task 1 has a natural ceiling. Once you have given an overview and reported the main features accurately, extra minutes add very little. Task 2 rewards extra thinking; Task 1 mostly does not.

Twenty minutes, spent

1. Minutes 1 to 2 - read. Axes, units, time frame, categories. Decide what is being measured before you look at the shape of the data.
2. Minutes 3 to 4 - plan. Find the overview and decide the grouping. Two body paragraphs, and what goes in each. Write nothing yet.
3. Minutes 5 to 17 - write. Introduction, overview, two body paragraphs, straight through. No editing while you write.
4. Minutes 18 to 20 - check. Every figure against the chart, every verb against its subject, and the tense. Two minutes finds more marks than two extra sentences would.

What under 150 words actually costs

The internet is full of confident claims about this. Here is what can actually be said.

An answer below the minimum is penalised under Task Achievement. That much is published and clear.

What is not published is any per-word deduction - no half band for every ten words short, no fixed scale. You will find such rules stated as fact all over the internet; they are not in the official guidance. Treat 150 as a floor to clear comfortably, not a number to calculate against.

The practical risk is subtler than the penalty. A short answer is usually short because it is missing something - most often the overview, or one of the two body groups. The word count is the symptom; the missing content is what actually costs you.

Aim for 170 to 190 words. Comfortably clear of the floor, and still inside twenty minutes.

Knowing your length without counting

• Counting words in the exam wastes a minute you do not have. Calibrate before the exam instead.
• On paper: write three practice answers at home, count them, and note how many lines 180 words takes in your handwriting. Most people land between 16 and 20 lines. In the exam you count lines, not words.
• On computer: the word count is displayed on screen, so this problem does not exist. If you are taking the computer-delivered test, use it - and stop at around 190 rather than writing on.
• Do not count copied words. Wording lifted from the question is discounted, so a copied introduction can put you under without the visible count showing it.

If you are running out of time

• Never abandon the overview. If you have five minutes left and no overview, write it now, even if a body paragraph ends up thin. It is the single highest-value paragraph in the answer.
• Cut detail, not structure. Four figures instead of eight is survivable. Three paragraphs instead of four is not.
• Do not write a conclusion. Task 1 does not need one, and a conclusion that repeats the overview wastes the words you needed elsewhere.
• Stop at twenty-two minutes regardless. Move to Task 2 with an imperfect Task 1 rather than a perfect Task 1 and a rushed essay.

Two habits worth building before test day

Practise to the clock, always. An answer written in thirty-five minutes tells you nothing about what you can produce in twenty. Most candidates who plateau are practising untimed and are genuinely surprised on the day.

Write the overview first, every time. Not because the examiner requires that order, but because deciding the big picture before the detail is what stops an answer becoming a list. Do it enough times and it stops being a step you can forget.

Where to go next

• The paragraph to protect at all costs: Writing the Overview.
• What separates a capped answer from a rising one: The Band 6 Ceiling.
• The four-step method in full: Task 1: Line Graphs.