Most candidates would rather see a bar chart than a process diagram. A picture of a brick kiln or a water cycle, covered in arrows and unfamiliar labels, feels like a trap. In practice it is the opposite: a process is the most formulaic Task 1 type there is, because the diagram makes the two hardest decisions for you. With a chart you must select which figures matter and group them; with a process, every stage matters and the arrows dictate the sequence. Your only real job is language: the right structure, the right voice, and enough sequencing variety to hold the stages together.
Why processes feel harder but score more predictably
The anxiety comes from vocabulary. A diagram of cement production might label a rotating kiln or a grinder, and you worry you will not know the words. But the labels are printed on the diagram, and you are allowed to use them. What the examiner is actually assessing, under Task Achievement, is whether you cover all the stages, write a clear overview, and report the process accurately. There is no data to misread, no trend to mislabel, and no judgement call about which numbers to leave out. That is why a drilled formula makes process reports score more consistently than chart reports: almost nothing is left to decision-making on the day.
If you have not yet read our Task 1 overview guide, start there for the general shape of a report. This article covers what changes when the picture is a process rather than a chart.
The four-paragraph structure
A process report uses the same skeleton as any Task 1 answer, adapted to a fixed sequence rather than a data set.
- Introduction (one sentence): paraphrase what the diagram shows. Change the wording, not the meaning.
- Overview (one or two sentences): say how many stages there are, where the process begins, and where it ends. No stage-by-stage detail here.
- Body paragraph 1: the first half of the stages, in order, linked with sequencing language.
- Body paragraph 2: the remaining stages through to the finished product or the point where the cycle repeats.
Splitting the stages across two body paragraphs is not cosmetic: it feeds your Coherence and Cohesion score. Look for a natural halfway point in the diagram, such as the moment raw material becomes an intermediate product, a change of location, or the point where a cycle turns back on itself, and break the paragraphs there.
For a process, the overview almost writes itself: state the number of stages, the starting input, and the final output. Something like 'Overall, the process consists of six main stages, beginning with the collection of raw clay and ending with the delivery of finished bricks.' The Task Achievement descriptor rewards a clear overview, and without one your band is capped no matter how well you describe the stages. It is the highest-value sentence in the whole report.
Counting stages and naming the endpoints
Two small decisions make the overview easy. First, count the stages and commit to a number; grouping two minor steps into one stage is fine, missing the big picture is not. Second, name the start and end points in plain terms: what goes in, and what comes out. For a cycle, such as the water cycle, there is no true end point, so say instead that the process is natural and continuous, and name the stage where it begins again.
See a real process diagram and try the structure yourself.
Practise a process questionPresent simple passive: the default voice
Processes are timeless: bricks were made this way last year and will be made this way next year, so the whole report sits in the present simple. And in a man-made process, what matters is what happens to the material, not who does it. That combination makes the present simple passive the default voice. The clay is dug, the bricks are shaped, the mixture is heated. Using the passive consistently and accurately is one of the clearest grammar signals a process report can send, and it feeds directly into your Grammatical Range and Accuracy score.
WeakNext stage, they put the beans in a big oven and roast them, then grinding to a paste.
StrongerAt the next stage, the beans are roasted in large ovens before being ground into a smooth paste.
The rewrite fixes three things at once: present simple passive (are roasted), a sequencer that is not a numbered list item (at the next stage), and a passive linking structure (before being ground) that joins two stages in one sentence.
The most common slips are dropping the auxiliary (the beans roasted in ovens), sliding into the past tense, or mixing active and passive at random. If passives collapse when you write at speed, the passive voice drill pressure-tests exactly these Task 1 forms alongside conditionals and tense consistency.
Man-made process or natural cycle? The voice changes
The passive-by-default rule has one important exception. In a natural cycle, nothing is done to the material by an outside agent: water evaporates, clouds form, rain falls. Forcing the passive onto these verbs produces unnatural English. So identify which type of diagram you have before you write, and let that set your default voice.
Man-made process
- Default voice: present simple passive (the mixture is heated, the bottles are filled).
- Focus on the material and the machinery, not the people.
- Has a clear start (raw input) and end (finished product).
- Typical verbs: is collected, is processed, is packaged, is delivered.
Natural cycle
- Default voice: present simple active (water evaporates, the larvae hatch).
- Focus on what happens by itself; there is no agent to hide.
- Circular: say the process is continuous and where the cycle restarts.
- Typical verbs: forms, rises, falls, develops, returns.
Some diagrams mix the two, for example a natural resource that is then harvested and processed. Switch voice when the diagram switches: active while nature is in charge, passive once people intervene.
Sequencing language beyond firstly
A process report lives or dies on its connectors, but a chain of firstly, secondly, thirdly, fourthly reads like a shopping list and shows no range. Aim to use a numbered opener once or twice at most, and carry the rest of the sequence with more natural structures.
- Openers: the process begins when, at the first stage, initially.
- Moving on: once the clay has been shaped, at this stage, at the following stage, after this, subsequently.
- Joining two stages in one sentence: before being fired, after which it is left to cool, where it is stored.
- Perfect passives for a completed earlier step: having been dried, the bricks are packed. This structure alone signals Band 7 grammatical range.
- Closers: at the final stage, the finished product is then, and the cycle then repeats (for natural processes).
Notice that many of these do double duty: 'before being ground' and 'having been dried' are both sequencers and passive structures, so one phrase earns credit under Coherence and under Grammatical Range at the same time.
Paraphrasing the process title
The introduction must reword the question, and process titles offer reliable swaps. 'The diagram shows the process of making bricks' can become 'The diagram illustrates how bricks are manufactured' or 'The diagram outlines the stages in the production of bricks'. Three moves cover almost every title: swap the verb (shows becomes illustrates or outlines), turn the noun into a passive clause (the process of making X becomes how X is made or produced), and add a frame such as 'the stages involved in'. Do not attempt to paraphrase technical labels from the diagram itself; use them as printed.
The three traps that sink process reports
- Describing stages out of order, or doubling back. The arrows give you the sequence for free; follow them exactly, because a jumbled order damages both Task Achievement and Coherence.
- Adding opinions or explanations. 'This method is efficient' or 'this stage is important for quality' does not belong in Task 1. Report what happens, never comment on it.
- Missing the overview. Candidates dive straight from the introduction into stage one. Without the stage-count-plus-endpoints sentence, the band is capped, exactly as it is for a chart with no overview.
One habit prevents the worst of these: before you write, trace the diagram from input to output and count the stages. Thirty seconds of tracing rules out the out-of-order error and hands you the overview at the same time.
The formula is the whole point: paraphrase, overview with stage count and endpoints, stages in order across two paragraphs, passive for man-made and active for natural, varied sequencers doing the linking. Write two or three practice reports against that checklist and the process diagram stops being the question you dread.