Writing Task 1: Process Diagram: Question 1
Syllabus W.task1
The diagram below shows the process by which bread is made in a commercial bakery, from the mixing of raw ingredients to the packaging of the finished loaves. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features. Write at least 150 words.
The process is linear, running through six stages from ingredient mixing to packaging, with no stage repeated.
Stage 1: Flour, water, yeast and salt are weighed out and combined in a large industrial mixer to form a dough. Stage 2: The dough is transferred to a fermentation chamber, where it is left to rise for a set period as the yeast ferments. Stage 3: The risen dough is divided into equal portions and shaped into loaves by a dividing and moulding machine. Stage 4: The shaped dough pieces are placed into baking tins and proved for a second time in a humidity-controlled prover until they have doubled in size. Stage 5: The proved dough is baked in a tunnel oven at a high temperature for a fixed duration, after which the loaves are removed and cooled on a conveyor belt. Stage 6: The cooled loaves are sliced by an automatic slicing machine and wrapped in sealed packaging, ready for distribution to shops.
Show worked solution Hide worked solution
Worked solution
Examiner notes: why this is a band 9 response
Task Achievement
The overview sentence immediately states the number of stages (six) and that the process is linear, which is exactly what a process-diagram overview must do. Every stage from the diagram is reported, in the correct order, with no invented steps and no explanation of why the dough is proved twice, which the task does not ask for.
Coherence & Cohesion
The response moves through the stages using a clear, varied chain of sequencing markers (“First”, “then”, “Once risen”, “next”, “After this final proof”, “Finally”) so that a reader can follow the process without needing to re-read the diagram. The closing sentence paraphrases the whole process rather than simply repeating the final stage, giving the response a clear sense of completion.
Lexical Resource
Precise process vocabulary is used throughout (“fermentation chamber”, “dividing and moulding machine”, “prover”, “tunnel oven”) alongside topic-appropriate collocations such as “proved a second time” and “wrapped in sealed packaging”, avoiding repetition of simple verbs like “make” or “put”.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
The passive voice is used accurately and consistently (“are weighed and combined”, “is transferred to”, “is baked”) because no human agent is named in the diagram, and this is combined with a range of complex structures, including relative clauses (“where it is left to rise”) and participle clauses (“Once risen, it is divided…”).
Common pitfalls specific to this task
See commonMistakes above: the most damaging is retelling the stages as a set of instructions in the imperative rather than describing them objectively in the passive voice, since IELTS Task 1 process reports must read as description, not as a recipe.