There’s a question on page 283 of the Official Cambridge Guide to IELTS.
In it we can see the village of Stokeford in 1930 and 2010. It’s a question I like to look at with students in Writing Task 1 class – maybe I’m biased but map questions are my favourite!
There are many changes between the two maps. We’re going to highlight those changes and think of some useful vocabulary we can use to describe them in our report.
First, let’s look at the 2 maps and consider the following:
- what is the same?
- what has changed?
What’s the same?
- the bridge
- the post office
- the River Stoke
- the main road
- the primary school*
What has changed?
- the primary school
- shops
- houses
- farmland
- gardens
- large house
Next, let’s think about some useful vocabulary for describing these changes.
Useful vocabulary
- build – make something by putting bricks or other materials together
- construct – make or form by combining parts
- convert – change in building function or use
- demolish – knock down a building
- develop – built houses etc. on a piece of land
- disappear – to no longer exist
- extend – increase a building in size or area
- reduce – to make something less in size
- replace – put something in the place of something else
We can use these words to think about specific changes in the village:
| demolish | By 2010, what had been demolished?
the shops |
| extend | What had been extended?
primary school |
| convert | What had been converted?
large house > retirement home |
| build | What had been built?
houses, roads |
| construct | What had been constructed?
houses, roads |
| replace | What had been replaced?
large house > retirement home, farmland > homes |
| develop | What had been developed?
farmland > homes |
| disappear | What had disappeared?
shops |
Our next step is to think of how we present the changes in our report.
Tenses
Both maps are dated, and both dates are in the past.
- Which tense should we use for 1930? past simple
- Which tense should we use for 2010? past perfect
1930
In 1930, Stokeford was surrounded by farmland. There was a primary school and post office in the centre of the village. Additionally, there were a couple of shops. To the north of the village, there was a bridge, crossing the River Stoke. A road wound through the centre of the village. There was a large house surrounded by gardens to the south of the village.
2010
By 2010, the shops had been demolished.
We’re saying ‘by 2010’ because the changes took place between 1930 and 2010. If we said in 2010 it’s like the changes took place in that year. We could also say “According to the 2010 map…”.
A suggestion is that we use the past perfect here, and instead of the past perfect active, we’ll use the past perfect passive. We use the passive when we are interested in the object or when we do not know who caused the action.
Someone had demolished the shops (Past perfect active) > The shops had been demolished (past perfect passive).
| demolish | By 2010, someone had demolished the shops.
> By 2010, the shops had been demolished. |
| extend | By 2010, someone had extended the primary school.
> By 2010, the primary school had been extended. |
| convert | By 2010, the retirement home had been extended. |
| build | By 2010, new roads had been built. |
| construct | By 2010, homes had been constructed. |
| replace | By 2010, farmland had been replaced by homes. |
| develop | By 2010, the farmland surrounding the village had been developed. |
| disappear | By 2010, the village shops had disappeared. |
And finally, we can bring all of this together to write our Task 1 report!
