How to describe a chart

Lekce angličtiny ve virtuálním prostředí Languagelab

IELTS writing: Graph description

Teacher: Kori Blaisdale

Students: Mobin highwater, Tina Toshi, Laurent Debbel, Anar Thistle, Alex, Andriy Ashland, Michael, Alex (Asia , Europe)

This lesson targeted the first writing task that is usually given in IELTS lesson. It is always important to carefully read questions and organize the time given for the task.

Firstly we talked about leisure activities. Here are the questions from the discussion.

1.    What types of leisure activities are popular in your country?

2.    Why it is important for people to have time for leisure activities?

3.    Why are some activities more popular than others?

4.    Are the types of leisure activities that are popular today the same as those that were popular when your parents were young?

5.    What types of leisure activities may become more popular in the future?

I was in a group with Andriy and Alex. They are both from Russia. Leisure activities in the Czech Republic and Russia are very similar. For example playing an ice hockey in the winter and cycling in the summer.

Then we were given a chart and a sample text.

The chart shows the time spent by Finland’s residents on different types of telephone calls between 1995 and 2004.

Local landline calls were the highest throughout the period, rising from 12000 million minutes in 1995 to just under 17000 million in 2000. After peaking at 17000 million the following year, these calls had fallen back to the 1995 figure by 2004.

National and international landline calls grew steadily from 6000 million to 10500 million at the end of the period in question, though the growth slowed over the last two years.

There was a dramatic increase in mobile calls from 250 to 9800 million minutes. This rise was particularly noticeable between 2000 and 2004, during which time the use of mobile phones tripled.

To sum up, although local landline calls were still the most popular in 2004, the gap between the three categories had narrowed considerately over the second half of the period in question.

Kori explained to us what should we concentrate on when describing such a graph. For example the use of synonyms and stating the facts given.

Then we were given a chart and a time to write our own description.

Here are two examples of answers:

1. The chart shows us information regarding number of visitors arriving into five countries; the USA, Brazil, Egypt, Malaysia and France.

The graph depicts that the numbers of tourists increased steadily in each country throughout the period from 1995 to 2010.

The country with the most visitors is the USA at around 90 million.  There is a slight decline in 2006 onwards though. France, however, experienced a sharp increase in the same year that continued growing until 2010; from 70 million to 80 million people. 

The number of tourist arriving in these two countries were similar in 2010, at the end of the period shown, with around 80 million people visited the two countries in 2010. 

Malaysia was visited by around 20 million tourists a year from 1995 to 2005. In 2010 the number rose to 35 million people. 

Brazil and Egypt are the least popular countries at the bottom of the graph. But again the numbers of visitors slightly grew throughout the years - from less than 10 million people in 1995 to around 20 million people in 2010 

2. The graph shows the overall numbers of tourist arrivals in five countries between 1995 and 2010. In 1995 over 70 million tourists visited the United States, more than twice as many as the next most popular destination shown, France. However, between 2005 and 2010 there was a decrease of approximately 1,500,000 in the numbers going to the United States whereas there was an increase of nearly 20 million tourists visiting France. The result was that in 2010 the number of tourists arriving in the United States and France was almost equal at around 90 million each.

The number of tourists visiting Malaysia rose steadily over the whole period but by 2010 the total was still under 50 million. The countries with the fewest tourist arrivals were Brazil and Egypt. The number of tourists going there was similar between 1995 and 2000 but after that there was a greater increase in tourists going to Egypt than to Brazil.