IELTS Academic Task 1 Writing: Tables

hi welcome to write to the top I'm Adam in today's video I want to talk to you about the IELTS academic test the writing section we're gonna look at the task 1 table I've done a bunch of videos about the other types of a task 1 pie charts line graphs etc you can follow the link at the top here to see those today we're gonna look at the table now for me personally the table is the most boring of the tasks one style tasks why because basically all you're looking at are a bunch of numbers and maybe a few words here and there there's no visual aids like with the bar graphs with the pie charts at least you can quickly see some sort of movement you can discern some relative information about the if but the things the items that are presented for you with the table all you have is numbers now the approach is exactly the same and I know that a lot of people have a problem with the table so I'm gonna walk you through one so here's the task we're gonna look at today you can press pause on your video player you can look at it read the task look at the table and then we'll come back and we'll go through it together so it started with the actual task the table below gives information about the percentage of adults who paid for admission to various entertainment events and five Nations very straightforward all you're going to do is you're going to paraphrase this task and put it into your introduction all you need to add is the unit of measure what what do the numbers actually mean what do they represent and you'll get that from the table itself on top of the table now very important and this is where a lot of people make a mistake remember all you're doing is summarizing and reporting you are not analyzing don't draw a conclusion don't say why something is the way it is don't guess as to reasons etc if you can't see it in the table don't put it into your report just take leave from the key information and again main features and comparisons that's all you're looking for and how are you gonna do that again same as the bar graphs line graphs pie charts etc you're gonna look for highs lows something that's very common something that's very out of the calm and out of the ordinary and that's what you're gonna focus on another thing you want to always make sure especially with the table what is what is on one side and what is on the top what are the items you're looking at in terms of making comparisons etc and there at the top that's your unit of measure percentage of adult population attending paid events so we're looking at the demographic we're looking at adults and how many adults go to these four different entertainment forms how much how many adults pay for these things pay for admission pay for tickets now the first thing that I would notice if I were doing this task is that the countries are split in a such a way I have two North American countries and I have three European countries that is probably the easiest way to split up your paragraphs and remember that is very much what the graders are looking for how did you arrange your information how did you paragraph the details so that and remember there's more than one way to do this so one way split it by country another way is to do it by highs and lows and differences so what's the first thing when I look at the numbers what's the first thing I notice well I notice that for all five countries cinema attendance is the highest in all five countries so I'm definitely going to focus on that now because I have the highest obviously I'm going to go looking for the lowest in the North American countries it's museum and gallery attendance in the European countries it's the sports attendance so those are my lowest and then if you look at performing arts they're very similar numbers and sports are very similar numbers sorry about that whereas in museums and galleries there are big differences between the Europeans and the North Americans and in the cinema there's a big difference between the North Americans and the Europeans that's what I'm going to focus on so again I wrote actually two versions of this task you can see both of them in my website there's a link below in the description box in YouTube but I'm gonna show you the one where I split it by similarity and difference similarity and difference body paragraph 1 similarity in difference body paragraph 2 similarity and difference so let's get into it first my introduction again you're just paraphrasing the table presented data on the entertainment purchases of adults in Canada the USA France Germany and the UK in 2012 the information is presented in terms of average adult attendance as a percentage of the population 37 words I can probably make it shorter but because I listed each country then it's making it longer I could also list it by the entertainment forms but that's just too many words you don't want to do that the graders will think you're just trying to fill up the word count okay so try to avoid stuff like that next have your overview statement some teachers will tell you you need a conclusion again you're not concluding anything you're not adding anything you're not analyzing anything so what you want is an overview start with overall this is your overview statement another thing that a lot of people do they connect the overview statements to the introduction but the introduction is telling you what am I looking at and the overview is telling you what can i generally see so these are two separate ideas have two separate paragraphs even if your overview statement is one sentence separated into its own paragraph so I want to show you two versions here I want to show you one this one let's start with this one overall it is clear that the most popular form of entertainment in all five countries was movies the least favorite was museums and galleries in the North American market and sporting events in Europe the reason I want to show you this is as something to try not to do try to avoid this structure it is adjectives even worse it can be seen it plus a passive verb first of all you're using more words than you need and second of all it is a bit of a weak structure and everybody uses this structure it's not wrong but if you can avoid it avoid it secondly if you do use this structure in the overview it is clear it can be seen in the graph in a table etc make sure that you don't use it again in your body I've seen people use this structure in every paragraph of their report use it once don't use it again ideally don't use it at all okay so now I want to show you another way to write this overview statement I'm gonna use one sentence this one has two sentences I'm going to show you one sentence without that it is clear structure overall movies were the most popular form of entertainment among adults in all five countries be very straightforward with the overview statement with museums galleries / galleries now in the table they wrote museum / gallery you can as well and sporting events being the least popular in North America and Europe respectively sorry and museums and galleries and sporting events being the least popular in North America and Europe respectively and here I know that a lot of you love to use this word I'm showing you a way to put it in there try not to use it again unless it comes up for fewer words one sentence much more direct okay now so what how did I mention I was going to do this I'm going with a similarity and then a big difference and my next paragraph similarity and big difference make sure you have some sort of consistency while the Performing Arts do not show a great discrepancy change or difference I should say in adult attendance ranging from 31.9 in Canada to 41.9 in France which means I'm including all five countries it is different from museum and gallery visits so I'm going to show you now I'm shifting to the difference France nearly doubles the USA in this regard museum and gallery visit in this regard 39.1 to 20.6 while all three european countries whose rates are relatively similar to each other more than double Canada's rate of 15.6 difference sorry similarity difference let's look at the next one in terms of sports I'm shifting focus I'm starting a new paragraph with a transition new focus there is a similarly small variance variance discrepancy or synonyms among the five countries with the UK boasting the most tickets sold to adults thirty 1.1 percent of the population in France the lowest at 22.7 cinemas meanwhile meanwhile there's my transition again I'm gonna go to the difference now attract over half their adult populations of sorry attract over half da sorry there's a little mistake there the adult populations of Canada and the USA while in Europe the high is this forty six point four in the UK my total word count is a hundred and ninety try not to go over 200 if you can put all the relevant information in 160 words that's fine too I generally say aim for about 175 in all tasks once sometimes you won't have enough to say but remember 150 is your minimum so that's one way to do it now as I mentioned another way and maybe an easier way is to split the information the two body paragraphs by the countries this is what's happening in North America this is what's happening in Europe the two in fact all the information etc also notice I didn't try to include every detail I barely mentioned Germany I didn't mention all the different numbers I mentioned the general and the main features the things that I think are the most important and the graders don't care what you think is the most important there's no such thing as a right or wrong answer there's only a well expressed or a Perley expressed answer if you try to do everything you're definitely not going to be able to do it well pic what do you think are the main features and report those in a nice tight summary okay and that's it if you have any questions about the table or any task one question please ask me in the youtube comment section if you liked the video please give me a like don't forget to subscribe to my channel and come back for more IELTS TOEFL grammar vocab I'll see you again soon bye bye

Channel: Write to the Top

Views: 240,696

Keywords: IELTS, English writing, English, writing, language test, English test, how to write, test tips, study tips, pass the IELTS, IELTS high score, language skills, better writing, writing skills, how to write in English, IELTS high band, IELTS writing, IELTS strategies, IELTS band 7+, high band score, Task 1, how to write a report, how to summarize, IELTS Task 1, IELTS Task 1 Table

Id: bgO-qjK3l2A

Length: 10min 53sec (653 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 07 2018