IELTS Writing Task 1 process diagrams: the band 7 report, step by step

Candidates drill line graphs for weeks, then open the exam to a diagram of bricks being made and lose two minutes just deciding what an "overview" of a kiln could possibly be. The panic is misplaced: a process is the most formulaic Task 1 there is. There are no figures to select, no trends to rank, no risky comparisons — the diagram hands you the content and the order. What it tests instead is grammar you can prepare in advance: the passive voice and sequencing language.

What each criterion wants from a process

Task Achievement wants every stage covered and an overview. For a process, the overview is always the same two facts: how many stages there are, and where the process starts and ends — "The diagram shows that brick production involves seven main stages, beginning with the digging of raw clay and ending with delivery to building sites." That sentence alone separates a 6 from a 7 on this criterion; reports that dive into stage one without it are capped no matter how accurate the rest is.

Coherence and Cohesion wants the stages sequenced with variety. First, then, next, after that, subsequently, once X has been done, at the following stage, finally — a band 7 report uses five or six different sequencers; a band 6 report uses "then" five times.

Lexical Resource wants the diagram's labels reworded where possible — dug from the ground → extracted; put in oven → fired in a kiln — and the nouns turned into a working vocabulary of the process rather than copied phrases.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy wants the passive, used where the agent is obvious or unknown: the clay is placed in a mould, the bricks are then fired at a high temperature. This is the criterion process questions exist to test, and the same passive carries Task 1 map questions, a process's closest cousin. A report written entirely in the active voice ("the machine crushes the clay") is not wrong, but it forfeits the structure the examiner is scanning for.

The four-paragraph frame

1. Introduction (1 sentence): paraphrase the prompt. The diagram illustrates the process by which clay bricks are manufactured for the construction industry.
2. Overview (1–2 sentences): stage count, start point, end point, and — if the diagram shows one — whether the process is linear or cyclical.
3. Body 1: the first half of the stages, in order, in the passive, with sequencers.
4. Body 2: the remaining stages to the end.

Split the stages where the diagram itself suggests a break — raw material preparation versus finishing and delivery, for example. An even split matters less than a logical one.

Worked example: the middle stages

The diagram shows clay dug by digger → metal grid → roller → sand and water added → moulded or cut → drying oven → kiln → cooling → packaging → delivery. Here is how three of those stages read at band 7:

Once the clay has been extracted, it is passed through a metal grid to remove larger particles, after which a roller crushes it into a finer consistency. Sand and water are then added to the mixture, which is either shaped in moulds or cut into brick-sized pieces with a wire cutter.

Three sentences carrying five stages: every verb passive, two different sequencers, extracted replacing the label dug, and stages combined where they belong together. Combining minor stages into one sentence is not skipping content — Task Achievement asks for coverage, not one sentence per arrow.

The traps that pull a process report to band 6

• No overview. The most common and the most expensive. Write it second, right after the introduction, before detail can crowd it out.
• Explaining instead of reporting. The task is what happens, not why it works or whether it is efficient. Opinions and speculation ("this seems wasteful") cost Task Achievement marks.
• Losing the thread of tense. Processes are reported in the present. Past tense creeps in mid-report when candidates start narrating ("the clay was then moved…") — pick present, stay there.
• One mechanical sequencer. Then… then… then… reads as band 6 cohesion by itself.
• Copying every label verbatim. Labels are allowed — you cannot invent a synonym for kiln — but a report that lifts every phrase unchanged gives Lexical Resource nothing to reward.

Twenty minutes is enough for 170–190 words on this frame — safely past the 150-word minimum — with the passive doing the grammatical heavy lifting. The candidates who fear the process diagram are the ones who never wrote three of them; write three this week and it becomes the Task 1 you hope for.