Write About the Photo - Guide to Duolingo English Test Question (2025)

In this complete guide, you will learn everything you need to get a great score on Write About the Photo questions on the Duolingo English Test!

Table of Contents

• What is the “Write About the Photo” question type?
• Tips to do well on the “Write About the Photo” question type
• How to practice “Write About the Photo” questions
• Conclusion

What is the “Write About the Photo” question type?

The Write About the Photo question type looks like this:

You are given 1 minute to describe the image. Very simple!

This question counts toward your Writing, Literacy, and Production subscores, and it appears 3 times on the test.

Tips to do well on the “Write About the Photo” question type

Here are the key tips to remember:

1. Learn Arno's 3-sentence template
2. Describe the location of objects
3. Always describe the colors of items
4. Master the present simple and present continuous verb tenses
5. Save time to proofread your response

Let's look more closely at each tip.

Learn Arno's 3-sentence template

We've created a 3-step template that has helped thousands of students ace Write About the Photo questions. Below is a full lesson that teaches you the template and under that a quick summary of it.

Sentence #1: General Description

What is the general scene depicted in the image? What are the primary objects or things happening? You can use these sentence starters for this first sentence:

1. This image shows…
2. This image depicts…
3. In this image, we can see…
4. In this picture, there is/are…

Sentence #2: Focus on a detail

What is a specific detail that catches your attention? Describe that detail as much as you can.

Sentence #3: Speculate

Make a guess about why things are the way they are in the image. Below are 4 useful vocab terms you can use for this sentence:

1. Perhaps…
2. Presumably…
3. Judging by…
4. It may be the case that…

You can also combine these terms, which we'll see in the example below.

Sentence #1 (General description): This image shows a man and a little boy walking down the sidewalk.

Sentence #2 (Focus on a detail): They are both wearing sweaters and jeans, and they seem to be having a conversation.

Sentence #3 (Speculate): Judging by their clothing and the leaves on the ground, I get the impression that this photo was taken in autumn.

Describe the location of objects

An easy way to add advanced vocabulary to your descriptions is to describe the location of things. Take the image below:

Instead of saying, There is a man with a bicycle and a food cart. You can say, In the foreground, there is a man with a bicycle and behind him is a food cart.

👉 You can learn more vocabulary to describe location in this lesson:

Always describe the colors of items

This is an easy habit to develop that will also immediately gain you points. Anytime you mention an object, describe its color. For example:

Instead of saying, In this image, I can see two people looking inside a car, You could say, In this image, I can see two people looking into a light red car.

Another trick is to not just include the color (red, blue, green, etc.) but also some modifier like light or dark! Below is a full lesson on how to use colors in your descriptions:

Master the present simple and present continuous verb tenses

These are the 2 verb tenses you need for picture description. In brief, use the present continuous to describe action and the present simple to describe everything everything else. These two verbs tenses are simple, yet many students lose a lot of points because they don't use them correctly. Avoid that mistake by taking some time to watch this lesson:

Save time to proofread your response

Although you only have 1 minute, you should save around 10 seconds to proofread your response. Look for obvious mistakes like typos and missing words, which will greatly lower your score. I explain these types of mistakes in the lesson below:

How to practice “Write About the Photo” questions

To improve your written English, you need feedback on your grammar and vocabulary. That’s exactly what Arno provides! Arno gives you an instant score and detailed feedback on your responses, showing you exactly how to improve.

To check out this personalized feedback, just click here to create your free Arno account. Every new user also gets a free, full mock test with subscores and detailed feedback on all of their responses.

We also have a free Vocabulary Builder that has specific collections for each area of the test, including for picture description. It's a fast and easy way to learn high-scoring, advanced vocab and raise your score!

Conclusion

By now, you have a full understanding of the Write About the Photo question type as well as how you can approach it to get a great score. To practice with everything you learned, just head over to Arno!