To describe a map in IELTS Academic Writing Task 1, you compare two maps of the same place at different times and report how it changed, using the passive voice and the correct tense for the dates shown.
To describe a process diagram, you explain each stage in the right order using the present simple, the passive, and sequencers such as first, next and finally. In both tasks you report and summarise the visual - you never give an opinion.
Maps and process diagrams turn up far less often than line graphs and bar charts, and that is exactly the problem: most candidates spend all their practice time on graphs and then freeze when a map or a flow diagram appears on test day.
This guide walks you through the tenses, the passive structures, the linking language and the paragraph structure you need, with phrase-bank tables and full model paragraphs for both task types.
If you have not yet covered data visuals, pair this with our companion guide on how to describe graphs and charts.
What are the shared rules for every Task 1 answer?
Before we split into maps and processes, it helps to fix the rules that apply to every Academic Task 1 question, whatever the visual shows. According to the British Council - IELTS Academic Writing guidance, Task 1 asks you to describe visual information in your own words.
The visual can be a graph, a chart, a table, a map or a process diagram, and your job is always the same: report and summarise the key information.
Four rules never change:
- Length and time. Write at least 150 words in about 20 minutes. Task 1 is worth roughly one-third of your Writing score, so do not let it eat into the time you need for Task 2, which carries the other two-thirds.
- No opinion. You must not say whether the changes are good or bad, or argue for one option. You report what the visual shows and summarise the main features. Saving opinions and arguments is what Task 2 essay structure is for.
- An overview is required. A clear overview - a sentence or two that summarises the biggest changes or the main stages - is essential for a strong Task Achievement score. Without it, your band is capped no matter how neat your sentences are.
- Four criteria. Task 1 is marked on the same four criteria as Task 2: Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Each criterion is worth a quarter of the mark, so a beautiful sentence with no overview still loses a full band on Task Achievement.
Keep those four in mind as you read on, because everything below is a way of scoring well on them for a specific visual type.
How do you describe two maps that change over time?
A map question almost always gives you two maps of the same place at different times - for example, a village in 1990 and the same village in 2020, or a factory site now and a proposed redevelopment. Your task is to describe how the place changed: what was added, what was removed, what was replaced and what stayed the same.
The two decisions that make or break a map answer are tense and voice.
Choosing the right tense from the dates
Let the dates on the maps choose your tense for you:
- Past to present (for example 1990 and today). Use the past simple and the present perfect: "In 1990 a large forest covered the north of the town" and "Since then, the forest has been replaced by housing."
- Past to a later past (for example 1980 and 2000, both finished). Use the past simple throughout: "A car park was built where the market once stood."
- Present to future (for example the site today and a proposed plan). Use will, going to and the future passive: "A new road will be constructed" and "The old warehouse is going to be demolished."
Read the labels before you write a single word. Mixing "was built" and "will be built" in the same paragraph because you did not check the dates is one of the fastest ways to lose marks on Grammatical Range and Accuracy.
Why the passive voice does the heavy lifting
In map descriptions, the interesting information is usually what happened to a place, not who did it - and often we do not even know who did it. That is precisely when English uses the passive voice.
Compare "They built a car park" with "A car park was built": the passive keeps the focus on the change to the map rather than an unnamed "they," and it sounds far more natural for reporting development.
So your core map structures are passive:
- a car park was built in the east (past)
- the forest has been replaced by housing (present perfect)
- a new bridge will be constructed across the river (future)
- the factory is going to be converted into flats (future plan)
Weave in a few active verbs for variety - "the population grew," "the town expanded to the west" - but let the passive carry the changes.
Which location and direction words do you need for maps?
A map answer that never says where anything is will read like a list. Examiners reward precise location and direction language because it shows both cohesion and lexical range. Keep a compact phrase bank in your head and reach for it whenever you place a feature.
| Function | Useful phrase | Example sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Compass position | to the north / south / east / west of | A hospital was built to the north of the river. |
| Relative position | to the left of, to the right of, opposite, between | A car park now stands opposite the station. |
| Next to something | adjacent to, next to, alongside, beside | New shops were added adjacent to the town hall. |
| Edge of an area | on the outskirts, on the edge of, on the eastern side | A housing estate appeared on the outskirts of the village. |
| Middle of an area | in the city centre, in the middle of, at the heart of | A pedestrian zone was created in the city centre. |
| Along a line | along the coast, on the banks of, running from A to B | Hotels were constructed along the coast. |
| Change of use | was replaced by, was converted into, was demolished, was relocated | The market was relocated to the western edge of the town. |
| No change | remained unchanged, was retained, still stands | The church in the centre remained unchanged. |
Notice the "no change" row. Strong map answers do not only describe what was added or removed; they also point out what stayed the same, which is often a genuinely important feature of the comparison.
A model map paragraph
Imagine two maps of a coastal town, one from 1995 and one from today. Here is how a body paragraph might read, blending tense, passive voice and location language:
"The most striking change took place along the coast. In 1995, this area consisted of open farmland, but the fields have since been replaced by a row of hotels stretching from the harbour to the eastern headland. To the north of the town centre, a small forest was cleared and a large car park was built in its place, while the fishing port on the western side was converted into a marina for leisure boats. The old town hall in the centre, however, remained unchanged and still stands as the town's main landmark."
Every sentence places the change somewhere, uses the passive for the change itself, and mixes past simple with present perfect because the second map shows "today."
How do you describe a process or diagram?
A process diagram shows how something is made or how a natural cycle works, usually as a series of numbered or arrowed stages. Your task is to describe those stages in order. There is no data to compare and no time period to track, so the tense and structure choices are different from maps.
Two kinds of process are common:
- Manufacturing or man-made processes - how coffee, cement, glass or paper is produced. These are almost always described in the present simple passive, because the focus is on what is done to the material at each stage, not on the workers doing it: "the beans are harvested," "the mixture is then heated," "the paper is cut into sheets."
- Natural processes - the water cycle, the life cycle of an insect, how something forms in nature. These use the present simple, sometimes active ("the water evaporates," "the larva hatches") and sometimes passive, depending on whether nature is acting or something is acted upon.
You also need to decide whether the process is linear or cyclical. A linear process has a clear beginning and end (raw material in, finished product out).
A cyclical process returns to its starting point, so your final sentence should say the cycle "begins again" or "repeats," rather than simply stopping. Getting this wrong - describing a life cycle as if it ends - is a classic Task Achievement error.
Which sequencers and passive verbs help you describe a process?
The engine of a process answer is sequencing language plus the passive voice. Sequencers show the order of stages and give your writing cohesion; the passive keeps the focus on the material. Vary your sequencers so you are not repeating "then" six times, and keep a bank of process verbs ready.
| Purpose | Useful language | Example sentence |
|---|---|---|
| Start the process | To begin with, In the first stage, Initially | To begin with, the ripe beans are picked by hand. |
| Move to the next stage | next, after that, then, following this, subsequently | After that, the beans are dried in the sun. |
| Show one thing after another finishes | once, after, when, as soon as | Once the beans are dry, they are transported to a factory. |
| End a linear process | finally, in the final stage, lastly | Finally, the ground coffee is packaged for sale. |
| Close a cycle | at which point the cycle begins again, and the process repeats | The vapour forms clouds, at which point the cycle begins again. |
| Passive process verbs | is harvested, is collected, is heated, is mixed, is cooled, is transported, is packaged | The mixture is heated to a high temperature. |
| Show purpose or result | in order to, so that, which causes, resulting in | The clay is heated in order to harden it. |
A quick warning about "then": it is fine once or twice, but a paragraph built on "then... then... then" reads like a child's story and will hold back your Coherence and Cohesion score. Rotate through the sequencers in the table instead.
A model process paragraph
Here is a body paragraph describing the manufacture of instant coffee, using present simple passive and a range of sequencers:
"The process begins on the plantation, where the ripe coffee cherries are harvested by hand. After that, the cherries are transported to a factory and the beans are separated from the outer fruit. In the next stage, the beans are roasted at a high temperature and then ground into a fine powder. Following this, hot water is added to the powder so that the flavour is extracted, and the resulting liquid is dried to leave granules. Finally, the granules are packaged into jars and distributed to shops for sale."
Every stage is in the passive present simple, and the sentences are joined with "after that," "in the next stage," "following this" and "finally" rather than a string of "thens." If the diagram had been the water cycle, the final sentence would instead read "at which point the cycle begins again."
How should you structure a map or process answer?
Both task types share the same four-part shape, which keeps you inside 150 words and about 20 minutes:
- Introduction (1 sentence) - paraphrase. Rewrite the question statement in your own words. For a map: "The two maps illustrate the changes that took place in the town of Redville between 1995 and the present day." For a process: "The diagram shows the stages involved in the production of instant coffee."
- Overview (1-2 sentences) - the big picture, no detail. For a map, summarise the biggest changes: "Overall, the town became far more developed, with most of the open land replaced by housing and tourist facilities." For a process, state how many stages there are and where it starts and ends, or whether it is a cycle: "Overall, the process consists of seven stages, beginning with harvesting and ending with packaging." This sentence is what earns the required overview marks.
- Body paragraph 1. Group related changes or the first half of the stages. Do not simply list; group logically - for a map, by area (north, then coast); for a process, by phase (preparation, then production).
- Body paragraph 2. The remaining changes or stages, finishing the story or closing the cycle.
Grouping is the difference between a band 6 and a band 7 answer. A band 6 candidate describes every feature in the order they happen to notice them; a band 7 candidate organises the features so the reader can follow a logical thread.
If you want a deeper drill on paragraph discipline that carries across both tasks, our guide on how to improve your IELTS writing goes further.
What are the most common mistakes in map and process tasks?
Because candidates practise these less, the same errors appear again and again. Watch for these five:
- No overview. Jumping straight from the introduction into detail is the single most costly mistake. Always write one or two summary sentences before any specifics. The examiner is specifically looking for it.
- Wrong tense. Writing "will be built" for a map dated in the past, or "was harvested" for a present-tense process, signals weak grammatical control. Check the dates on maps; use present simple for processes unless the diagram itself is historical.
- Listing without grouping. "There is a school. There is a car park. There is a hotel." is a list, not a description. Group features by area or by stage and connect them.
- Giving an opinion. "This new road is a great improvement" belongs in Task 2, never in Task 1. Report; do not judge.
- Forgetting the cycle. Ending a cyclical process at the last box, when an arrow clearly loops back to the start, misses a main feature. If it loops, say the cycle "begins again."
A sixth, quieter mistake is running over time. Task 1 is worth half of Task 2, so spending 30 minutes polishing a map description robs the essay that carries most of your Writing mark. Practise finishing in 20 minutes.
How can you get feedback on your Task 1 answers?
The hard part of map and process writing is not learning the rules - it is knowing whether your own paragraph actually meets them.
You cannot easily tell if your overview is doing its job, if your tenses are consistent, or if your grouping reads as logical to an examiner. That is where structured feedback matters.
IELTSbiz includes a free AI Writing Checker built for exactly this. Paste a Task 1 answer and it returns a band estimate together with feedback organised by the four official criteria - Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, and Grammatical Range and Accuracy.
For a map or process, that means it can flag a missing overview, a tense slip, or a paragraph that lists instead of grouping, so you can fix the specific thing that is holding your band down rather than guessing.
Write a fresh description under timed conditions, check it, act on the feedback, and repeat: that measured loop is how the score actually moves.
Confirm the marking framework for yourself against the official IELTS.org - Test format page so you know the four criteria are the real target, then use the checker to see how close each draft comes.
The bottom line
Maps and process diagrams look intimidating only because they are less familiar.
The mechanics are simple: for maps, compare two moments in time, use the passive voice, and let the dates pick your tense while location language places every change; for processes, walk through the stages in order in the present simple passive, joined by varied sequencers, and remember to close a cycle if the diagram loops.
Add a paraphrased introduction and a genuine overview to both, keep to 150 words in 20 minutes, and stay silent on your opinions.
Practise a handful of each under time, run every draft through the Writing Checker, and the visual you once dreaded becomes the easy third of your Writing exam.