Cambridge IELTS 21 is out. This guide covers both Academic and General Training, comparing their writing tasks with Cambridge 20. If your test is approaching, the latest official practice papers are a useful reference point: have the writing tasks changed, does your current preparation still cover them, and what should you practise next?
Comparing the Academic and General Training books with Cambridge 20 reveals a practical message: new scenarios, familiar writing tasks. The useful adjustment is to broaden the situations you can handle. You can keep your existing preparation while checking whether it covers a natural process, a university survey and letters with different purposes.
Cambridge 20 vs 21 at a glance
| Writing task | Cambridge 20 → Cambridge 21 | What to practise |
|---|---|---|
Academic Task 1: processes | Making fabric from bamboo → formation of a rain-shadow desert. | Natural actions and changes of state, alongside production steps. |
Academic Task 1: multiple visuals | Library member ages, loan categories and loan totals → university library users and satisfaction. | Identify what each dataset measures. Do not invent links between them. |
General Training Task 1: letters | A college friend, a friend's sister, an actor and a removal company → an agency, a newspaper, a council and a workplace mentor. | Requests, feedback, suggestions and introductions suited to the recipient. |
General Training Task 2: Test 4 | Why people buy too many clothes and how to persuade them to buy fewer → spending on vitamin pills and encouraging a better diet. | Explain behaviour, then match each proposed change to its cause. |
These are differences between two editions. Four tests per book cannot establish that a topic will dominate future exams. For your preparation, their value is more immediate: they expose situations that a narrow practice routine may have missed.
What deserves more practice?
Academic Task 1: add a natural process to your practice
Cambridge 20's bamboo question follows material through production: bamboo is harvested, crushed and processed into fabric. Cambridge 21 Test 3 follows air across a mountain range. Moist air rises and cools, clouds form and rain falls; dry air then descends and continues inland towards a rain-shadow desert.
If most of your process practice involves factories, this is the clearest gap to fill. Production diagrams give you repeated opportunities for passive verbs. A natural process also needs active verbs describing movement and changes of state. For example: As the moist air rises, it cools and clouds form.
The change also affects your overview. Counting stages is only part of the job. Here, the central relationship is moisture being lost on one side of the mountains before dry air travels inland. Explain that relationship before describing the sequence in detail.
For your next practice, write an overview and four linked sentences from this diagram. Check that each action has a clear subject and each transition follows an arrow. You do not need extra geography facts; the diagram supplies the information.
Academic Task 1: keep the library datasets separate
Both editions use library information, so the topic itself is familiar. What changes is the comparison you need to make. Cambridge 20 combines member ages, loan categories and annual loan totals. Cambridge 21 Test 4 combines the composition of university library users with ratings of its services.
The practical challenge is deciding which figures belong together. Full-time undergraduates account for 44% of users. Separately, 95% of respondents are very satisfied with staff helpfulness. You can report both findings, but you cannot say that 95% of undergraduates are very satisfied: the table does not break ratings down by user group.
A workable report structure is one paragraph on who uses the library and another on service ratings. Within the ratings, compare the strongest result with areas of dissatisfaction: nobody reports being dissatisfied with opening hours or staff helpfulness, whereas 20% are dissatisfied with journal availability.
Before writing, label each visual with its population, unit and subject. Then choose two main findings for the overview. This short preparation step helps you select useful comparisons without turning two separate datasets into an unsupported claim.
General Training Task 1: practise what each recipient can do
Cambridge 20 includes letters to a college friend and a friend's sister. Cambridge 21's four recipients are an accommodation agency, a newspaper, a council and a workplace mentor. This edition gives you more practice with public and professional relationships, although one book does not establish a permanent move away from informal letters.
If you have mainly rehearsed friendly advice and invitations, work through these four purposes:
- Noise complaint: tell the agency when the late-night gaming began, how it affects you and what action you want. A request to contact the tenant and address the noise gives the agency a clear next step.
- Countryside litter: explain where you walk and why you enjoy it, describe the rubbish you have seen, and suggest what might help. You could propose newspaper coverage or a community clean-up; do not assume the newspaper itself collects rubbish.
- Concert feedback: identify the concert, explain what you enjoyed and suggest an improvement. A complaint-heavy template would distort a task that also asks for positive feedback.
- Mentor introduction: connect your background to the help you need, then propose a first meeting. Career ambitions alone leave the practical arrangement unanswered.
For example, a mentor request could say: I would appreciate advice on planning my first client project. Would you be available for a short meeting on Tuesday afternoon? This is an illustrative sentence, not a fixed formula. Its value is that the reader knows both the purpose and the proposed action.
What has stayed the same?
Cambridge 21 does not give you a reason to replace your whole Task 2 approach. Its Academic questions still ask you to take a position, discuss views, weigh advantages and disadvantages, or answer two questions. The settings include tall apartment blocks, theatres and cinemas, overseas study or work placements, and formal learning versus classroom play.
Take the apartment-block question. The claim is that tall buildings are the best way to provide enough homes in large cities. A useful argument therefore explains how building upwards can increase housing supply on limited land. An essay mainly about beautiful views or neighbourly relationships may discuss apartment living without evaluating that proposed solution. Your housing vocabulary remains useful; the argument needs a clear connection to housing supply.
The General Training Test 4 comparison shows even more directly how old practice transfers. Cambridge 20 asks why people buy too many clothes and how to persuade them to buy fewer. Cambridge 21 asks why people spend heavily on vitamin pills and how to encourage a better diet instead. The topic changes; the need to connect a proposed change to a reason remains.
Consider these possible essay arguments:
- For clothes, frequent discounts may encourage unnecessary purchases. A waiting period before buying could interrupt that impulse.
- For vitamin pills, some buyers may see a purchase as easier than changing everyday meals. Practical guidance on quick, affordable meals could make the alternative feel more manageable.
These are illustrative explanations, not findings established by the questions. The transferable skill is explaining why your suggestion would address the behaviour you identified. If convenience is your proposed reason, a paragraph that only says “raise awareness” leaves the practical obstacle unresolved.
Variety in Academic Task 1 is also established. Cambridge 20 already included a map, a process and multiple visuals. Cambridge 21 continues that range. The preparation lesson is to cover that range before spending another week polishing the chart type you already find easiest.
Three adjustments to your study plan
You can turn this comparison into three focused sessions. Choose the Task 1 work for your test module; you do not need to practise both modules.
- Find the missing situation. Academic candidates: review your last five Task 1 answers. If none describes a natural process or multiple visuals, choose the desert or library task next. General Training candidates: plan all four letters in brief notes, giving each bullet point its own content. Write the letter whose purpose feels least familiar.
- Compare before writing another essay. Put the clothes and vitamin-pill questions side by side. For each, outline one reason, one proposed change and one sentence explaining the connection. Then write one complete answer under timed conditions. This tests whether your reasoning transfers beyond a memorised topic.
- Review the gap you targeted. For the desert, check the overview and sequence. For the library, check every comparison against the relevant dataset. For a letter, check that the recipient has enough detail to respond. For Task 2, check that each main paragraph develops an answer to the actual question. Rewrite the weakest part before taking another full test.
Use Cambridge 21 to find unfamiliar scenarios, and Cambridge 20 to check whether your existing skills transfer. You then have a concrete reason for each practice task, rather than simply working through another book.
Explore the questions: Cambridge IELTS 21 Academic and General Training, compared with Cambridge IELTS 20 Academic and General Training.