climbing modest overall rocketed steadily upward

It is of note that the overall trend for the first six months of the year was upward . After a modest increase of 10 units in February, the amount of units sold rocketed to 78 in March, before climbing steadily to 104 by the end of June.
l ch l xu hng chung trong su thng u nm nay l i ln. Sau khi tng khim tn 10 chic trong thng Hai, s lng n v bn ra tng vt n 78 Thng Ba, trc khi leo dn n 104 vo cui thng Su.

marginal marginally overall steadily steady substantial

1. It is immediately apparent that the overall trend is that

considerably more women than men were recruited in this period. 1. N l r rng rng xu hng chung l ph n ng k hn so vi nam gii c tuyn chn trong giai on ny. 2. The number of females employed rose steadily between 2001 and 2004, despite a marginal dip in 2002.

S lng n s dng tng u n t nm 2001 n nm 2004, mc d suy thoi nh trong nm 2002. 3. There was a very substantial increase in the number of men employed in 2005. C s gia tng rt ng k v s lng nam gii lm vic trong nm 2005. 4. There was a steady rise in the number of females employed

between 2001 and 2004, notwithstanding the fact that this number fell marginally in 2002. C mt gia tng n nh v s lng ph n lm vic t nm 2001 n nm 2004, d thc t l s lng ny gim nh trong nm 2002.

downward dropped slightly slipping spectacular

After starting the period at almost 150 units, sales dropped slightly to around 130 in August.

Sau khi bt u giai on ti gn 150 n v, doanh s bn hng gim nh xung khong 130 trong thng Tm.
They then rose to 135 in September before slipping back to 130 in October, a downward trend that continued in November.

Sau h tng ln 135 vo thng trc khi gim tr li n 130 vo thng Mi, mt xu hng gim m tip tc trong thng Mi Mt.
The period ended with a spectacular fall to 60 units sold. Giai on kt thc vi mt gim ngon mc ti 60 n v bn ra.

Identifying patterns in bar charts

This lesson looks in detail at one way to organise your answer when describing a chart or graph in part 1. The suggestion is that you should try and look for patterns in the data. When you write , you report those patterns and note any exceptions to them. This works on several levels: your writing becomes more coherent linking ideas together you are more likely to identify the key points the report becomes easier to write To help you do this, you will find a bar chart with a sample answer below. I also show you one way how to identify patterns in bar charts.

Sample task
Analysing the key details
Dont look at the whole chart, look at the x axis and the y axis separately The first step is to analyse the chart carefully. Dont rush this stage. One way to do this is by asking yourself questions. One tip is to look at the y (vertical) and x (horizontal) axes one by one to see if you can see any patterns and/or exceptions. It can be very confusing of you look at the chart as a whole. As you do this, it is normally a good idea to look at the extremes as these are almost always key details.

Test yourself
Ask yourself if the lines look similar, different or the same Try this brief quiz to analyse the y axis. As you go through the test, you should notice how I ask simple questions. What is the biggest? Are they the same, different or similar? Does any one bar look different from the rest? Remember that you are looking for patterns. [ My conclusion from this is that we must state: hotels were the most common form of accommodation at over 50% self-catering was second most popular (just below 30%) but there is one major exception caravan and camping holidays were typically least popular (around 10%) but again there was an exception

England, Scotland and Wales follow a broadly similar pattern (Scotland is only slightly different) the popularity of caravanning in Northern Ireland needs to be highlighted

Organising the report choose the simplest option

There is always more than one way to organise a report. In the exam you are under time pressure, so it makes sense to choose the simplest option. Here the 2 main choices you have are:
Lun lun c nhiu hn mt cch t chc mt bo co. Trong k thi bn ang chu p lc thi gian, v vy n c ngha chn ty chn n gin nht. y l 2 la chn chnh bn phi l:

go through the countries (the x axis option) My choice would be to use the countries. There are only 4 of them and 3 of those are very similar and it seems natural and easy to group England, Scotland and Wales together. Northern Ireland is the odd one out.
thng qua cc nc (ty chn trc x) S la chn ca ti s dng cc quc gia. Ch c 4 trong s h v 3 trong s rt ging nhau v n c v t nhin v d dng nhm Anh, Scotland v x Wales cng. Bc Ireland l mt trong nhng nc l ra.

go through each type of accommodation (the y axis option) thng qua tng loi hnh n ngh (ty chn trc y)

A sample answer

This answer is not perfect. It is not meant to be. Rather you should note how it is logically organised, grouping similar information together. There is one paragraph for England, Scotland and Wales showing the main pattern. I start by noting the most evident feature of the chart. I also use England as a model and then compare the situation in Wales and Scotland. Then there is a separate paragraph for Northern Ireland, highlighting the key exception.

Cu tr li ny khng phi l hon ho. N khng c ngha l phi. Thay vo bn nn lu n nh th no hp l c t chc, nhm thng tin tng t nhau. C mt on cho Anh, Scotland v x Wales cho thy m hnh chnh. Ti bt u bng cch ghi nhn cc tnh nng r rng nht ca bng xp hng. Ti cng s dng Anh l mt khun mu v sau so snh tnh hnh x Wales v Scotland. Sau , c mt on ring bit cho Bc Ireland, lm ni bt ngoi l quan trng.

This bar chart shows the results of a survey on whether people in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales stayed in hotels, caravans, campsites or self-catering accommodation when they went on holiday in 2010.

Biu thanh ny cho thy cc kt qu ca mt cuc kho st v vic c ngi Anh, Scotland, Bc Ireland v x Wales li trong khch sn, on l hnh, khu cm tri hoc ngh t phc v khi h i ngh mt trong nm 2010

The most striking feature of the chart is that in all four countries the majority of people chose to stay in hotels. This figure was highest in England at around 55%, almost twice the number of people who cooked for themselves (27% of the sample) and far greater than the number who stayed in campsites (12%) and finally caravans (6%). A similar pattern was repeated for the Scots and the Welsh. In each case, around 50% of holidaymakers went to hotels with around 30% in self-catering apartments. The one difference being that caravan holidays at 12% were twice as popular than camping holidays in Scotland, while the opposite pattern could be seen in Wales. The one country that shows a different pattern is Northern Ireland. It is notable how there just over 30% of the population chose caravan holidays in preference to self-catering accommodation and camping (both around 12%).

Cc tnh nng ni bt nht ca bng xp hng l trong tt c bn quc gia a s ngi dn chn li trong khch sn. Con s ny cao nht
Anh vo khong 55%, gn gp i s lng

ngi nu n cho bn thn (27% ca mu) v ln hn nhiu so vi s ngi li trong khu cm tri (12%) v cui cng l on l hnh (6%). Mt m hnh tng t c lp i lp li cho Scotland v x Wales. Trong mi trng hp, khong 50% du khch n khch sn vi khong 30% trong cc cn h t phc v. Mt trong nhng khc bit l ngy l on caravan mc 12% l hai ln l ph bin hn so vi ngy l cm tri Scotland, trong khi m hnh i din c th c nhn thy x Wales Mt trong nhng quc gia cho thy mt m hnh khc nhau l Bc Ireland. iu ng ch nh th no ch c hn 30% dn s chn ngy l on trong u tin cho ch t phc v v cm tri (c hai u khong 12%).

Choosing the right details in a bar chart

This lesson is designed to help you think about how part 1 IELTS writing works. The idea is that many of the problems with task 1 writing are caused by the thinking part analysing the data. That matters because the goal in task 1 is not just to describe the information in the chart, but to summariseit by selecting the key data. To do this, you need to spend time thinking it is not simply a vocabulary exercise. Id add that time spent thinking is rarely wasted. If you spend 3/4 minutes thinking of what details to include, the report actually becomes easier to write. All the ideas are there (good for your Task Response score) and it becomes much easier to organise the report (good for your Coherence and Cohesion score).

Test yourself first

This is a simple bar chart similar to one you might find in task 1. Your task is to analyse and decide what information you would choose to include in your writing. 1. Look at the chart and think for 3/4 minutes 2. Make notes of what details you would include 3. Try the test how many of the details I suggest did you find?

Have problems? Disagree with me? Read on below.

Try the quiz

Start with the obvious

Sometimes it is easy to forget to include a detail because it looks too simple. Dont do that. Simple matters. If you dont include these simple details, your writing will lack clarity. The tip here is to look at the simple (that word again) things like colours and line lengths let the visual help you. Do that and you get something like this: i khi n rt d dng qun mt chi tit bi v n c v qu n gin. ng lm th. Vn n gin. Nu bn khng bao gm nhng chi tit n gin, vn bn ca bn s thiu s r rng. Li khuyn y l nhn vo n gin (t mt ln na) nhng th nh mu sc v di dng - cho s gip trc quan m bn. Lm iu v bn s c c mt ci g nh th ny:

1. there are 6 countries 2. some bars are longer than others there are significant differences in the proportion of proficient second language speakers among the different countries 3. there are two colours of bars males and females are included in the study the green lines are typically longer generally more females than males are proficient in a second language c 6 quc gia

mt s qun bar di hn nhng ngi khc c s khc bit ng k trong t l ngi ni thnh tho ngn ng th hai trong s cc nc khc nhau c hai mu sc ca thanh - nam v n c a vo nghin cu 4. cc ng mu xanh l cy thng di - ni chung ph n hn nam gii thng tho mt ngn ng th

Look at the key use it to organise your answer

The key can also help you. Its role is to show what the different lines mean. One thing that you can do is to use it to organise your answer: in this case, that means making sure you write about:

males females a comparison of males and females

Ive helped you here by re-organising the data. This is what you should see and need to include: 1. India is much the largest (around 55%) 2. China is the smallest (about a third of India) (around 17%) 3. Romania, Vietnam, Russia and Thailand are in that order and approximately similar (between 32 and 42%) Likewise with females, its a good idea to look at the extremes and this is what you get: 1. India and Romania are the largest (around 65% and 65% respectively) 2. Thailand is the smallest (about 27%) 3. There are fairly significant differences between Vietnam, Russia and China Comparisons are almost always important. Here you should see: 1. Typically, more females are proficient than males 2. Thailand is the exception because there the pattern is reversed (the lines cross) 3. Romanian females appear to be especially good at languages

Look at the axes

Another detail you need to include is that the percentage of second language learners varies considerably from country to country. You can see this by simply looking at the length of the lines on the y (vertical) axis. To help you see this, I have re-organised the data in a pie chart: Key information to include from this is that overall:

1. China has significantly the lowest proportion of second language speakers 2. India is much the largest 3. there are no major differences between Romania, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam

A sample report
Take a look at this sample report and see how I have included the relevant details. This bar chart shows how second language proficiency varies between males and females in 6 different countries. It is immediately apparent that while there is significant regional variation in second language ability, typically a higher percentage of females than males speak a second language well. If we look at males we can see that India has much the greatest proportion of proficient second language speakers at around 55% and China has the least at fewer than 18%. There is only a 10% difference in competency ranging from around 40% to around 30% between Romania, Vietnam, Russia and Thailand in second to fourth places respectively. There are,however, notably more female than male second language speakers in every country with the exception of Thailand. So, India once again leads the way with around 65% , closely followed by Romania and then Vietnam and Russia at 56 and 42% in turn. The two countries with fewest proficient second language speakers are China and Thailand at around 30%. The final point to note is that of the countries in the report, India would appear to have the
Notes

Biu thanh ny cho thy trnh ngn ng th hai khc nhau gia nam v n trong 6 quc gia khc nhau. N l r rng rng trong khi c s thay i ng k trong kh nng ngn ng th hai, thng l mt t l cao hn n gii hn nam gii trong khu vc ni mt ngn ng th hai tt.
highest overall proportion of proficient second language speakers and China the least.

Nu chng ta nhn vo nam gii chng ta c th thy rng n c nhiu t l ln nht ca ngi ni ngn ng th hai thnh tho khong 55% v Trung Quc c t nht l t hn 18%. Ch c mt s khc bit 10% nng lc khc nhau, t khong 40% n khong 30% gia Romania, Vit Nam, Nga v Thi Lan th hai n nhng ni th t tng ng. Tuy nhin, ng ch hn n hn ngi ni ngn ng th hai nam mi quc gia ngoi tr Thi Lan. V vy, n mt ln na dn u cch vi khong 65%, theo st Romania v sau Vit Nam v Nga 56 v 42% ln lt. Hai nc c ngi ni ngn ng th hai thnh tho t nht l Trung Quc v Thi Lan vo khong 30%. im cui cng cn lu l trong nhng quc gia trong bo co, n s xut hin vi t l tng th cao nht ca ngi ni ngn ng th hai thnh tho v Trung Quc t nht

The obvious details form the summary statement/introduction. The main content paragraph looks first at males and then makes a contrast with females. Doing it this way means you dont need to repeat a lot of detail. For both males and females, the first figure included is the highest figure and, typically, the numbers run logically from high to low.

A bar chart organising your answer

Much of the difficulty in academic IELTS part 1 is knowing how to organise your answer. This post shows you one way to do this when the diagram is a bar chart. I talk about paragraphs, but what you really need to understand is that this is a visual task. You need to be write so that someone else can see the diagram. This post shows you one to organise your task 1 with a step-by-step guide and has the added bonus of an interactive quiz on comparison language.

The key skill paragraphing

The key skill is to make sure that you write in organised paragraphs just as you would in an essay. This is so important because it will not just improve your coherence and cohesion band scores, but it will also make the report easier to write. To do this, we need to identify key features that will make the topics of the paragraphs. When we have done that, we can look for the details that explain those features.

What are key features?

Normally, they are obvious. Never ignore the obvious. Look at the bar chart below and what do you see? What you should see is this: 1. 2 sets of lines (one red and one blue) 2. some lines are longer than others Those are your key features that you must highlight in your report as paragraph topics. Everything else is detail. Tip: Think visually. Look for the obvious and ignore any writing when you first look at a chart. Close your eyes. What do you remember? Its easy to be confused by detail.

What are supporting details?

Lets now look at the complete chart.

Key features
We now see what the 2 key features that need to be reported are. Remember these will be the topics of our 2 content paragraphs : 1. the distinction between men and women (the blue lines and the red lines) 2. how certain purposes of travel are more common than others (how long the lines are)

Supporting detail: men and women

Looking at the blue and red lines this is what I see and needs to be included: 1. little or no difference in walking holidays and personal business 2. more men in education, entertainment and commuting 3. more women in school run, visiting friends and shopping 4. many more women in school run (5% difference) 5. many more men in commuting (8% difference)

Supporting detail: purposes

This is fairly straightforward as all you need to do is arrange the different categories into an order showing the most common and least common purposes. 1. commuting and shopping much the most common (around 20% average) 2. visiting friends and school run both around 15% average 3. personal business just under 10% average 4. sport/entertainment around 7% average just more than education at 6% 5. least common is walking and holidays at around 3% each Note the % figures here are averages of the male/female numbers. Tip: when you have many different categories, it is a good idea to group them together under a few headings

A possible answer
There are, of course, many possible answers to this task. Here is one solution.

This bar chart shows the different reasons for making journeys in the UK in 2006 and how males and females differed in this. It is immediately apparent that the most common purposes for travelling were commuting and shopping, both being around 20 per cent of trips. The next most common reasons were visiting friends and doing the school run at 15%, closely followed by personal business at around 10%. Travelling for sport and entertainment (7%) was only just more common than journeys for educational purposes (6%). Finally, the fewest number of trips were travelling for holidays and walking, both of which accounted for around 3 per cent of all journeys. Typically, there were few major differences between males and females. In holidays, personal business and walking both sexes took approximately the same amount of journeys, while slightly more men travelled for educational purposes and more women visited friends. Notably, almost twice as many men as women travelled for entertainment reasons and, likewise, around 7% more men commuted to work. The two areas in which women travelled significantly more than men were shopping and the school run.

Biu thanh ny cho thy nhng l do khc nhau lm cho chuyn i Anh vo nm 2006 v lm th no nam v n khc nhau v iu ny. N l r rng rng mc ch ph bin nht i du lch c i li v mua sm, c hai l khong 20 phn trm ca chuyn i. Nhng l do ph bin nht tip theo c thm bn b v lm thi gian hc l 15%, theo sau l c nhn kinh doanh khong 10%. Du lch th thao v gii tr (7%) l ch mi ph bin hn hnh trnh cho mc ch gio dc (6%). Cui cng, s lng t nht ca chuyn i c i du lch cho cc ngy ngh v i b, c hai u chim khong 3 phn trm ca tt c cc cuc hnh trnh. Thng thng, c rt t s khc bit ln gia nam v n. Trong ngy l, c nhn kinh doanh v i b c hai gii mt khong cng mt s lng hnh trnh, trong khi nhng ngi n ng i du lch nhiu hn mt cht cho mc ch gio dc v nhiu ph n n thm bn b. ng ch , gn gp i nh nhiu ngi n ng nh ph n i du lch v l do gii tr, v tng t nh vy, hn khong 7% nam gii gim xung lm vic. Hai lnh vc m ph n i du lch nhiu hn ng k hn so vi ngi n ng mua sm v thi gian hc.

Test your comparison vocabulary/grammar

In this form of writing comparisons are crucial. Indeed, they are perhaps the most important grammar item in academic task 1. So why not test yourself with this exercise? See if you can re-use the comparison language from my example. comparison quiz Tip: try to vary the language you use to make comparisons. One way to do this is use adverbs such as significantly

Bar charts an interactive lesson

This is a complete IELTS writing task 1 lesson. You will find here a quiz on the exam, a sample task 1 question, an interactive quiz guiding you through a possible approach to this part of the paper and then an online timed exercise and finally a sample answer.

Think and plan

The concept here is to get you doing and most importantly thinking. For me, this is the most academic part of the whole IELTS exam: indeed, perhaps the one truly academic part of the exam. If I have one major tip here it is to think (and plan) as much as you can before you start writing. If you do that, the writing part tends to be easier with practice!

The aim of the lesson

This lesson has a very particular focus. It is to get you organising and selecting the right information. This is a personal comment, but I really do believe that the major difficulty in this part of the paper is one of organisation: in contrast to the essay, all the information is given to you and most of the language is quite predictable. What is left is the task of putting that information and language together: the task of organisation.

Now the interesting bit

Below youll find an IELTS task 1 writing task. There is a relatively easy set of questions to help you approach the question. It is in effect a mini lesson. Please note that the information in the chart is made up! Youll find my solution posted as a comment. I suggest you do the exercise and then check my answer out.

A suggested approach
In short my suggested approach is: 1. Find the main ideas: look for the obvious points. Often these are missed because they look too simple. An example of a main idea is that the trend is upwards. Each main idea is the topic of a separate paragraph (just like an essay really). 2. Find the key supporting details: looking for the extremes is a good place to start- these details are the support for your main ideas

Model answer
You will find my model answer attached as a comment. Note that you may have to expand the quiz (bottom right hand corner) to view it properly.

A model pie chart report step by step

This lesson gives you a step-by-step approach to dealing with pie charts in task 1. I talk you through how to identify the main points, select the supporting details and then structure your

report. I then show you two model answers: one with standard vocabulary and then a much more advanced version with more vocabulary and grammar you can borrow.

The task
The following pie charts show the results of a survey into the most popular leisure activities in the United States of America in 1999 and 2009. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Step 1: seeing the big picture

The first step is to identify the main points of the two charts. This is not just an important part of the task and your band score, it will also help you write your description. The main points are normally obvious. Sometimes they are so obvious that candidates ignore them. Look at these questions: 1. How many activities are there in each chart? Just count 2. Are the activities the same in each chart? Read the key 3. Are there any changes in popularity between the two years? Look at the colours You should get these answers: 1. There are 8 activities for each year 2. 7 of 8 activities are the same 3. There are a number of differences in popularity between the two years. All you need to do now is put that into English and you have the main points of the report. Adding in a short description of the task we have:

These two pie charts show the changes in popularity of different leisure activities in the United States of America between 1999 and 2009. We can see that the most popular leisure activities were almost the same in both periods, but there were a number of differences in popularity between the various activities.

Hai biu cho thy nhng thay i trong ph bin ca hot ng gii tr khc nhau ti Hoa K t nm 1999 n nm 2009. Chng ta c th thy rng cc hot ng gii tr ph bin nht l gn nh ging nhau trong c hai giai on, nhng c mt s khc bit trong ph bin gia cc hot ng khc nhau

Step 2: choose the details to include

There are 16 different figures you can include. This is too many. The task is to select and report the most important details. This will include naming all the activities, but not all the numbers. To do this, try looking for:
1. the biggest number 2. the smallest number These are generally important details to include. You should also consider what changes beween the two charts, not least because the task asks you to make comparisons. So, ask yourself: 1. whats gone up 2. whats gone down 3. what hasnt changed 4. whats new

Putting this together, we need these details:

1. walking is most popular in both periods 2. yoga disappears and weightlifting is new 3. swimming doubles 4. aerobics, jogging and cycling all fall 5. soccer and camping dont change much

Step 3: organise your report

This will vary from task to task, but typically you will be looking at two content paragraphs. As you write your paragraphs, you want to think of three key ideas:

highlight the main points they come first group similar ideas together find a logical structure to present the points In this case, I would go with this structure: Paragraph 1 walking is much the biggest slice of the pie in both years weightlifting is new and yoga has gone

It is clear that walking was the most popular activity in both 1999 and 2009 with around 30% of Americans saying that they preferred it. Also, yoga was no longer among the preferred activities in 2009, but weightlifting was chosen by 10% of people. Paragraph 2
refer to the other activities in order of popularity in 2009 soccer and swimming first, jogging and aerobics last note the biggest changes cycling, jogging and aerobics all big fallers, swimming the big riser. The second most popular activity was soccer at just under 20% in both years, a figure that was matched by swimming in 2009, having almost doubled in popularity over the previous decade. Most of the other activities became less popular over the same period of time, with cycling, jogging and aerobics all falling by at least a half to under 10%. The one exception to this trend was camping which stayed almost unchanged at around 9%. tham kho cc hot ng khc nhm ph bin trong nm 2009 - bng v bi li u tin, chy b v th dc nhp iu cui cng lu nhng thay i ln nht - i xe p, chy b v th dc nhp iu tt c s gim ln, h cc riser ln. Cc hot ng ph bin th hai l bng , mc di 20% trong c hai nm, mt con s c kt hp bng cch bi trong nm 2009, tng gn gp i ph bin trong thp k trc. Hu ht cc hot ng khc tr nn t ph bin so vi cng khong thi gian, vi i xe p, chy b v th dc nhp iu tt c gim t nht mt na di 10%. C mt ngoi l cho xu hng ny l cm tri m vn gn nh khng thay i mc khong 9%.

Step 4: get the vocabulary right

This is the big one and will take time to learn. To help you on your way, I show you two model answers with extensive vocabulary notes. My suggestion is start with the first one. Dont be worries that it looks too simple. it isnt. It is in fact extremely good band score 9. The when you have that right, take a look at the second version which has some more advanced vocabulary.

A good version
This is the final report

These two pie charts show the changes in popularity of different leisure activities in the United States of America between 1999 and 2009. We can see that the most popular leisure activities were almost the same in both periods, but there were a number of differences in popularity between the various activities.

It is clear that walking was the most popular activity in both 1999 and 2009, with around 30% of Americans saying that they preferred it. Also, yoga was no longer among the preferred activities in 2009, but weightlifting was chosen by 10% of people. The second most popular activity was soccer at just under 20% in both years, a figure that was matched by swimming in 2009, having almost doubled in popularity over the previous decade. Most of the other activities became less popular over the same period of time, with cycling, jogging and aerobics all falling by at least a half to under 10%. The one exception to this trend was camping which stayed almost unchanged at around 9%.

Read about the vocabulary

My band score 10 answer

The above report is exceptionally good. It covers all the right details (Task response), has a good range of grammar with relative clauses (Range and accuracy of grammar), is very coherent (well organised and linked) and has some range of vocabulary, even if some words are repeated (Lexical resource). This answer can help you by extending the range of vocabulary you use for:

general words dealing with numbers linking

These two charts illustrate how the preferred leisure activities of Americans changed between 1999 and 2009.Generally speaking, while the list of activities remained almost identical over the decade, there were a number of changes in their relative popularity. It is immediately evident that walking was by some distance the most popular pastime in both years,accounting for just under a third of the preferences expressed. Of equal note is that by 2009, yoga had disappeared from the list of preferred activities and had been replaced by weightlifting, which was chosen by one in ten Americans. Among the less popular activities, the most notable development was that the proportion of people who went swimming doubled, making it equal second in popularity with soccer at 18%. In stark contrast, around as half as many Americans went cycling in 2009 as compared to ten years earlier, with the result that it became less popular than camping, at 7% and 9% respectively. Likewise, the number of people who went jogging and did aerobics also dropped significantly, with less than 5% of respondents to the survey choosing them.