‘Reading and writing cannot be separated from each other: the more in-depth reading you do, the more in-depth writing you will eventually do.’

As this quotation from the University of Washington’s writing centre suggests, there is a clear link between reading and writing. Reading exposes you to different styles, shows you how grammar is used correctly, and helps you to build vocabulary and use it accurately – all of which are skills that feed directly into your writing. Many candidates find the Writing paper the most difficult, so anything that strengthens these underlying skills is worth your time. But to get the maximum benefit for your IELTS Writing test, and boost your band score, you need to use reading as a source for focused writing activities. Read on for an example of how you can do this.

Task

In IELTS Academic Writing Task 1, you will describe a chart or a process. Where do you find the language to do this? Let’s start by reading this article from the UK’s Independent newspaper on the topic of the global middle class, which is full of statistics and trend language. Here’s your task:

1. Print out the article (or open it on your tablet so you can mark it up) and read it through.
2. Highlight every mention of quantities or proportions, or how they change (for example, 88% of…, just over a tenth, …rose significantly).
3. Now copy down each sentence that includes one of these examples, and write a parallel sentence on a different topic underneath it. In this exercise we are focusing on language, rather than the interpretation of the graph. So it doesn’t matter whether your sentences are true or not; what’s important is that you practise using the words.

Take a look at these examples:

Original sentence:
The middle-income population nearly doubled between 2001 and 2011.

Parallel sentences:
The population of rhinos in Kenya nearly doubled between 2005 and 2025.
Over the same period, the population of elephants more than doubled.

Get into the habit of using this language correctly, so that by test day you’re already comfortable with it.

Here are three more original sentences to get you started. Try writing two parallel sentences for each.

1. The middle classes amount to just over a tenth of the global population.
2. By 2011, over half of the world’s population lived on a low income.
3. In Africa and Central America, middle class populations barely rose.

How does this help?

The two-step approach – read first, then write – works because reading on its own is passive, while writing parallel sentences forces you to actually use what you’ve noticed. Once you have actually written a phrase, and it’s gone from your mind to your fingers and onto the screen, it becomes available when you need it.

The technique isn’t limited to one article or one task type, either. Try it with news features when you’re preparing for Task 1, with opinion columns when you’re preparing for Task 2, and with science or business articles when you want to build language for cause and effect, comparison, or trends. Keep your parallel sentences handy so you can revisit them – the words you write down today are the words you’ll reach for in the test.

There is no quick fix to learning English, but exercises like this one are how the slow fix actually works: a little reading, a little writing, repeated often.