IELTS Examiner / Practice Prompt Bank — GT & Academic / Academic Task 1
IELTS Academic Task 1: Process Diagram — Nature & life cycles
Original practice prompt written in exam style — not a real exam question, and not a prediction.
The diagram below shows the life cycle of a salmon. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. The life cycle is as follows. Adult salmon swim upstream to the upper reaches of a river, where the female lays thousands of eggs among reeds in slow-moving water; the eggs take about three months to hatch. The young fish that emerge, called fry, are about 3 cm long and remain in the river, feeding and growing for several years until they reach about 15 cm, at which stage they are known as smolt. The smolt then swim downstream to the open sea, where they spend several more years and grow into adult salmon of 70–76 cm. Finally, the adults return to the same river where they were born in order to lay their eggs, and the cycle begins again.
Examiner focus: A natural cycle with three named stages and growth figures (3 cm → 15 cm → 70–76 cm) — location changes (river → sea → river) organise the answer.
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