Picture Description
The mark is not for seeing the picture. It is for describing it in an order a reader can follow.
Step 1 — Understand the task
You are given a picture and asked to describe it, often in a set number of words. The examiner cannot see whether you have understood the picture except through the order and the accuracy of your sentences.
The commonest weak answer is a list: There is a man. There is a tree. There is a bus. Everything true, nothing organised, few marks.
An order that always works
General statement
One sentence saying what the picture shows as a whole. The picture shows a busy market in a small town in the early morning.
Setting
Where and when. Indoors or outdoors, town or village, time of day, weather, season.
Foreground
The people and objects nearest the viewer, and what they are doing. Use the present continuous.
Background
What is further away — buildings, hills, the road, the sky.
Impression
One closing sentence about the mood or what the picture suggests. The scene gives an impression of cheerful confusion.
The language you need
Position
- in the foreground / in the background / in the centre
- on the left / on the right / at the top / at the bottom
- next to, beside, behind, in front of, between, among, under, above
- in the distance / nearby
Actions in progress
- A woman is selling vegetables.
- Two children are running towards the gate.
- Several people are waiting for the bus.
Careful guessing
You cannot know what is happening, so do not state it as fact. Use language of appearance instead — this is often where the better marks lie.
- It appears to be early morning.
- The man seems to be a fisherman.
- They look as though they are waiting for someone.
- It is probably a school day, since the children are in uniform.
- Judging by the umbrellas, it may have rained earlier.
Step 2 — Study a model
Question: Describe the picture in about 100 words. (The picture shows a village bus halt in the morning.)
The picture shows a village bus halt on what appears to be an ordinary school morning.
The halt stands beside a narrow tarred road, with paddy fields stretching away on the right and a row of small shops on the left. In the foreground, four schoolchildren in white uniforms are waiting, two of them reading from a book held between them. Beside them an elderly woman is sitting on the low wall with a cloth bag on her lap. A young man is standing at the edge of the road, looking down it as though the bus is late. In the background a bullock cart is moving slowly towards the shops, and the sky is bright and cloudless.
The scene gives an impression of unhurried, everyday village life.
Why this answer works
- The first sentence is a general statement, and it already uses careful guessing: appears to be.
- The description then moves in a fixed order — setting, foreground, background — so the reader can build the picture in their mind.
- Position words carry the organisation: beside, on the right, on the left, in the foreground, beside them, in the background.
- Actions are in the present continuous, which is correct for a picture: are waiting, is sitting, is moving.
- As though the bus is late is an inference, correctly marked as one rather than stated as fact.
- The closing sentence gives an overall impression, which lifts the answer above a list.
Step 3 — Identify the structure
Mark the model: sentence 1 is the general statement; the long middle paragraph moves setting → foreground → background; the last sentence gives the impression. Notice that the middle paragraph never jumps backwards. Once the description has moved to the background, it stays there.
Step 4 — Guided practice
Take any photograph — in a newspaper, in a textbook, or on a wall at home — and do this.
- Write one general sentence about what it shows.
- Write two sentences about the setting: where, when, what the weather is like.
- Write three sentences about the foreground, using the present continuous and at least two position words.
- Write two sentences about the background.
- Write one sentence giving your overall impression, using seems, appears or gives an impression of.
- Count your words. If the task asked for 100 and you have 140, cut the two least important sentences.
Step 5 — Write independently
Fifteen minutes, about 100 words, on a picture you have not described before. Do it three times in a week, with three different pictures. This task improves faster with repetition than almost any other.
Step 6 — Correction checklist for picture description
- Does my first sentence say what the picture shows as a whole?
- Have I followed a clear order — setting, foreground, background?
- Have I used at least four position words?
- Are the actions in the present continuous?
- Have I used careful guessing language (seems, appears, as though) rather than stating what I cannot know?
- Have I described only what is in the picture, without inventing a story around it?
- Is there a closing sentence giving an impression?
- Am I near the word limit?
- Have I checked articles — a man, the woman, the road — which are heavily used in description?