Write About the Photo

One photograph, sixty seconds, three times per test. It is the shortest writing task and the one most often under-written, because Duolingo removed the minimum word count and nothing on screen now tells you when you have done enough.

The Facts


Time	1 minute
Preparation time	None
How many per test	3
Subscore	Writing
Adaptive	No
Scored as	Writing criteria: content, discourse coherence, grammar, lexis

What You See

A photograph and a text box, with a sixty-second timer that starts the moment the photo appears. There is no preparation time. The photo stays visible while you write.

The photographs show people, animals or objects in ordinary situations — a market, a kitchen, a street, a waiting room. Duolingo states that they are real photographs taken by real people rather than generated images.

Sixty seconds is roughly forty to sixty words for most people. If you type slowly, that is the real constraint on this task, and it is trainable.

The Shape That Scores

The difference between a mid-band and a strong answer is not vocabulary. It is whether you describe or merely list. Use the same four moves every time.

Who or what, and where. Start with the subject in the first four words. No preamble.
What they are doing, right now. Present continuous carries this task.
One detail from the background. This is what moves the answer from a caption to a description.
One inference. The time of day, the season, what probably happened just before. This is the sentence that reaches the top bands.

The four moves on one photo

1. "A chef in a white jacket and a tall hat is working at a gas hob in a narrow restaurant kitchen."
2. "He is holding the handle of a wok with his right hand while flames rise out of it, and he is carrying a tin in his left hand."
3. "Pans are stacked on a shelf above the hob, and the tiled wall behind him is lined with bottles of oil and sauce."
4. "He is looking straight at the camera and seems completely unconcerned by the fire, which suggests this is a normal part of the dish he is cooking."

The Language This Task Rewards

Present continuous for what is happening: is weighing, are waiting, is stacking.
Prepositions of place to build the scene: in the foreground, behind them, along the far wall, to the left of.
Hedging for inferences: it looks like, I would guess, judging by, which suggests.
Precise nouns rather than adjective stacks. An apron beats a special work clothing thing.

If you do not know the word for something important, do not skip it. Describe it: "the metal thing they use to weigh fruit". Word-choice imprecision costs a little; leaving the centre of the photo undescribed costs Content.

Common Mistakes

A long opening: "This picture shows a situation that might be happening in everyday life." A quarter of the minute, zero marks.
Naming objects in a list rather than describing a scene.
Sentence fragments. Full sentences with correct punctuation are explicitly part of the grammar criterion.
Writing one perfect sentence and stopping. Content is capped by how much of the photo you actually covered.
Describing what is not there, or inventing a story that the photo does not support.

How to Practise

One photo a day under a real sixty-second clock. Stop when the timer stops, even mid-sentence, and see what you actually produced.
Describe it to someone who cannot see it. If they could not draw the scene from your answer, the Content is not there yet.
Time your typing separately. If you type at 25 words per minute, that is your ceiling on this task and no vocabulary work will raise it.
Photos with strong and weak model answers side by side are on the Writing samples page.

Kirill O'Nayd, Duolingo English Test expert

Written by Kirill O'Nayd

English test expert and educator at TestSucceed, where he builds the Duolingo English Test practice tasks and mock tests and has spent years taking apart how computer-adaptive, AI-graded exams award their points. See all TestSucceed preparation materials.