IELTS Writing Task 1 Process Diagram: How Olive Oil Is Produced

The diagram below shows the stages involved in producing olive oil, from the harvesting of olives on the tree to the bottling of the finished oil. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words.

The process is linear, beginning with the harvesting of olives and ending with the bottling and storage of the oil, and consists of six sequential stages:

Ripe olives are harvested from olive trees, either by hand or using mechanical shakers, typically in the autumn months.
The harvested olives are transported to the mill and washed to remove leaves, twigs and soil.
The washed olives are crushed, together with their stones, into a thick paste using a stone or hammer mill.
The paste is slowly stirred, or malaxed, for around thirty to forty-five minutes so that small droplets of oil combine into larger ones.
The malaxed paste is pressed, or spun in a centrifuge, to separate the oil from the solid residue, known as pomace, and any remaining water.
The extracted oil is filtered to remove impurities before being either bottled immediately or stored in stainless-steel tanks until it is ready for bottling.

Examiner notes: why this is a band 9 response

Task Achievement

The overview states clearly that the process is linear and has six stages before any detail is given, and every stage (harvesting, washing, crushing, malaxing, pressing/centrifuging and filtering/bottling) is reported accurately and in the correct order, meeting the task fully without adding any unstated stages.

Coherence & Cohesion

The six stages are grouped into three paragraphs of two stages each rather than one sentence per stage, and cohesion is achieved through varied sequencing markers (“starts when”, “then”, “once”, “after”, “subsequently”, “finally”) rather than a repeated single connector.

Lexical Resource

Precise process vocabulary is used throughout (“malaxed”, “centrifuge”, “pomace”, “stainless-steel tanks”), and near-synonymous process verbs are varied (“harvested”, “transported”, “crushed”, “stirred”, “pressed”, “filtered”) to avoid repetition.

Grammatical Range & Accuracy

The passive voice is used accurately for a process with no single named agent (“are harvested”, “is crushed”, “is filtered”), combined with accurate time clauses and appositive phrases (“known as pomace”) that add detail without grammatical error.

Common pitfalls specific to this task

See commonMistakes above: the most damaging is naming invented stages, such as peeling or destoning the olives, since Task 1 marks a response down for reporting features the diagram does not actually show.