IELTS Live - Task 1 Writing - Combination Graphs

hi students and welcome to today's live IELTS class my name is Adrian and I'm streaming to you live from beautiful Central Europe I hope everybody is having a safe healthy and good week so far hi muck Sood good afternoon to you as well or good evening depending on where you are students this class we are looking at a task one writing and this was requested by one of our members I believe this request came from Elena it's good to see many members sending requests now this task 1 will be a combination graph in fact it will be a combination of a diagram together I believe with a table hi Connie hi Abhishek hi Michael this lesson is presented to you by AE help comm for academic IELTS success definitely check us out there for general IELTS visit us at G IELTS help.com on both of these websites we have lots and lots of resources to help you so highly and I think this request came from you that we're looking at in today's class maybe I'm mistaken but I'm sure one of you will chime in and let me know who requested this class students so just really quickly this is our academic website here you can click that big red button to join the Premium Package and on the website you will find practice exams audio listening exercises fully interactive course with strategies mobile apps I believe now we might be able to say that we have the most advanced online outs learning software out there so definitely check it out general out students we have a unique separate website for you at Geoff's help.com green background click that big red button to join the Premium Pack there it was Yelena right so I remembered correctly all right everyone if you have questions about any of our products or the IELTS exam just send us an email we're British Council registration center partners so we're very much intertwined with the IELTS organization just send me an email to Adrian at AE help.com if you want our exam books in paper hard copy version search Amazon for a E helps academic IELTS or GE help general IELTS after today's task one class will do a listening part one and two exercise for everybody where everybody can join in okay students let's get cracking so we'll get right into today's question here it is and I this question does come from one of the Cambridge books that Elena sent us so we'll cover it in class alright let's read the question first that's always your first step read the question carefully remember this is an expository essay your goal is to explain what you see this is academic task 1 not general general is different ok anybody who's planning to do business or go to university you should have a very clear idea of how these kinds of essays work because they will be very useful for your school and your job so make sure to practice them this is an expository essay third person voice that means you never use pronouns like I me or you in task one okay it's all people it can be observed more passive voice here as well alright so let's read this carefully IELTS task 1 writing you should spend 20 minutes on this task pay attention to the time in the exam make sure you do not go over 20 minutes the following diagram and Abell show the causes of land degradation globally and it's specific regions describe the main features and make comparisons where relevant you should write at least 150 words so minimum 150 words students if you're looking for been seven eight nine your goal should be closer to 200 words for sure okay 200 words of good quality writing alright even if you have perfect quality writing at 150 words I don't think you're going to get over 7.58 okay there I don't think you'll ever get a nine writing exactly 150 words especially not for a combination graph because in a combination when you see a table together with bar graph there's just too much good information to keep it at just 150 words okay all right so some of you are probably going okay age and I read that but what is land degradation don't worry if you don't know yet look at the the picture that will probably help you figure it out okay so here is the first picture and I hope it will come up nice and clear for you okay all right there we go that looks pretty good yeah I'll be Scheck a synonym for degradation as decay yeah that would be a good synonym for sure okay okay so here we go causes of worldwide land degradation notice how worldwide is one word make sure if when you use this in your essay you don't write it as two words and then you see here over grazing and you have a little picture of a cow you can probably figure out that grazing means animals eating okay so cows sheep horses these animals graze it means they chew the grass and the different kinds of Glantz okay over cultivation that means growing crops so a wheat barley rice and then harvesting collecting those crops okay that's cultivation deforestation as the picture shows it's quite straightforward it's basically cutting down trees and then other came other could be the way that we dispose of garbage landfills and so on we don't know what that is exactly it's just other okay all right so that's our first picture and it's a kind of a diagram pie chart if you will okay so this looks like a diagram at first I shot because it's you know you got the cow the wheat the trees but at the same time when you look carefully it is a pie chart okay you can see that this is a diagram pie chart okay everybody is good so far and then here you have a table okay underneath the pie chart so the table says causes of land degradation by region and then percent of land degraded by and then region so here we have North America North America of course includes United States Canada and Mexico right those three countries make up North America and then here we have Europe Europe is made up of a number of countries and then you have Oceania Oceania Oceania there's a little asterisks and the asterisks further describes that it's a large group of islands in the South Pacific including Australia and New Zealand okay that's pretty big Australia's one of the seven continents as well so it's more than just an island and then here you have the percent land degraded now by this point you probably figured out that degrading land means too lose the arable land so it means the land quality is diminished and decays it's destroyed it's damaged okay hopefully you've thought of some of these words so that you can write this essay and then now you see deforestation over cultivation over grazing and the total land degraded so how much of the land that's available in these regions is actually being destroyed okay so you have that can it's all percents so these are percents as well okay percent of land degraded okay all right so now we're going to write the essay and I will show you exactly what to do when you get this kind of a combination graph and how to get a nice high score alena it is a pie chart you can say diagram as well that makes sense okay you could call it a diagram but I would call it a pie chart pie chart is more specific than diagram Elena so pie chart is better okay all right hi Maya hi Natalie Majah 180 words as long as you have good quality writing so not too many mistakes you can get AB and seven for that okay Maya so 180 words of good quality writing can get you a seven or even a seven five for sure alright maybe an eight if you really did a good job and no mistakes alright okay students so step number one is the overview now I know some of you asked can I put via diagrams into the community board before the lesson so you can look at them usually yes I will do that in the future but I can't do it for graphs and charts that are not open source and Cambridge passed papers that's owned by Oxford and Cambridge Press so I can't put those into our community chat because we don't have copyright for that so that's why you won't see it there okay all right so let's do this first of all let's paraphrase this sentence here this is the introduction slash overview right it's the same students again reminding those who think it's different so the introduction and overview are not different they're not two paragraph it's just one paragraph it's not two paragraphs so here using what you saw paraphrase of this question and give it some more detail okay so we'll do that together I'm going to do it and a little bit of silence so you can hear yourself think and then we'll compare it okay all right so I can see that you're coming up with your own answers as well that's great I'll bring this up a little bit so you can kind of look at it there and let's see what you've come up with okay so Pavan writes the provided pie chart represents the reasons for land decay due to deforestation over cultivation over grazing and other reasons and the table delineates the percentage of land degradation globally and for specific areas not bad Pavan okay not bad that's pretty good careful with your information Pavan I know the table wasn't there it's not globally the other correction Pavan is other reasons you don't need the word reasons because you said due to deforestation over cultivation over grazing and other or and others , and the table okay but not that Pavan overall that's quite good Beck John says the given pie chart illustrates the main reasons for worldwide land deterioration nice paraphrasing while the table depicts the percentages for three specific places North America Europe and Oceania affected in the year 1990 do we see that anywhere I don't see 1990 perhaps you're looking at the actual question in the in the Cambridge book maybe there shows the date somewhere but I don't see 1990 here Beck John but anyway if you see that in another version of this then that's fine if you don't careful not to report information that is not given all right Hasan nice to see you in class Hassan Hassan says the given diagrams illustrate the four motives for land degradation namely deforestation over grazing over cultivation and other and located in three regions North America Europe and Oceania Hasan I would write and more specifically comma three regions North America Europe and Oceania that's how I would write it and more specifically okay this is where you can also students use the word respectively and so the pie chart shows ABC and the table shows that de F respectively okay so that works here also Marussia says the given pie chart and table illustrate that deforestation over cultivation over grazing and Miska lanius are the major issues for dissemination of land globally and for specific regions comma respectively roshni that that would work for for your opening sentences absolutely okay Charlie says the presented pie chart represents the reason of land decay all over the world which includes deforestation animal grazing over cultivation aside from this the given table shows us the percentage of land decay across three regions North America Europe and Oceania I think you're writing continent there charlie continent is okay for North America Europe but not for Oceania Oceania is not considered a continent to my knowledge Australia is so careful with awkward information also students presented pie chart represents using the word present and represent their very synonymous and they sound similar so I don't recommend using them together in the same sentence for a native English speaker it sounds a bit awkward just a little insight there okay dr. Krishna says the given pie chart and table depict the reason land dissipation worldwide and region wise specifically North America Oceania and Europe due to over cultivation over grazing deforestation and others very well written dr. Krishna very very nicely written Elena thou who requested the the task one today says the given pie chart and table depict the cause of damage to land for various reasons namely over grazing over cultivation and others at the same time the table specifies three regions like North America Europe and Oceania and the percent of land degradation not bad Elena a couple of Corrections there be careful Oceania is more accurate than Australia only in this case make sure you have the - between over grazing and over cultivation okay so not bad alright doing a good job students um notice of course the many different ways that you can paraphrase the question and give those details I think every one of you have written your own style in your unique approach and other than just slight small mistakes here and there all of you do have more or less a correct opening sentence or a couple sentences so good job okay Abhishek says the given pie chart and table depicts the causes of worldwide land decay including over grazing deforestation over cultivation and others with three specific places as well North America Europe and Oceania respectively nicely done okay students so good now of course to add to our overview we need to look at the main feature here's what I wrote okay I took two sentences read with me the given pie chart shows the causes of worldwide land degradation in over grazing deforestation over cultivation and other furthermore the provided table reveals data about these reasons for three specific regions of the world North America Europe and Oceania a couple of interesting points here students so two points that I want to emphasize in my first sentence okay before we go on to the main feature notice how I didn't complicate it too much okay and I wrote two sentences I really don't want to start my writing section with mistakes okay so just a couple of important tips here for these kinds of combination graphs okay so tip 1 do not write a very complex sentence for your first sentence of task 1 because if you make mistakes it looks really bad as the start of the writing section ok is that clear so do you do you kind of get what I mean there students you really want to be careful not to start with a mistake in your first sentence of your first task in the writing section that just looks bad because it sets the mood or the level for the examiner if you write your first sentence with two three mistakes because you tried to go really complex an examiner goes okay good try but not so good okay so don't do it and start simple then you can get fancier as you go along but start clean okay all right that's number one number two okay so tip two here is make the connection between the multiple graphs that you are given right away okay and emphasize it okay so notice this in my introduction here firstly I discussed the pie chart right so this first sentence here pie chart and then the second sentence here is the table okay now importantly notice this connective word furthermore okay I didn't use in addition I purposefully used furthermore furthermore is like and one alright the reason being is that most of the time ninety percent of the time when you have two graphs so for example like a pie chart and a table basically what you're looking at is a funnel so you're looking at what's called general information moving to specific information is that clear so you want to very quickly show the examiner that you see this we're going from the world to some specific regions and it's most of the time going to be something like this in some cases it's a comparison of two different sides so like a before and after okay that's another way that you'll see it is before and after but oftentimes it's going to be a general to a specific either that or a comparison like a before and after is that clear so you want to show the examiner that you see that relationship between the multiple graphs right away and you can do that with furthermore the table gives more specific data is that clear you can literally use that type of a sentence where you're writing furthermore the provided table reveals more detailed data about these reasons for three specific regions okay so is that clear so general to specific show that to the examiner everybody's got it good I need that feedback thank you okay good Thank You Natalie all right so that's why I'm using the word furthermore making that connection clear also when you have this is my third tip that you'll see right away here at the from the beginning okay tip number three okay when you have multiple graphs it becomes extra important to state information in a concise way using brief grammar when possible as well as abbreviations and symbols okay so you should try to make your task 1 task to writing concise don't overstate don't repeat ok give new information and state your information concisely now that doesn't mean don't use complex sentence as you should use complex compound sentences because they actually do help make communication more concise but you also have to be careful not to be what's called wordy this is actually expressed in editing as avoid wordiness ok wordiness is when you're using way too many words to express something simple so notice for example here I'm writing in America so I don't actually write North America so even for something as simple as North America I abbreviate the N and I'm not going to write words like percent when I can just use the symbol percent because you have so much in for Meishan in the two graphs to discuss that you don't want to waste time energy and space on being wordy does that make sense is that clear for everybody so those three tips are very important to keep in mind especially for these combination graphs okay everybody thumbs up you're good all right okay so that's just something to start us off with all right so now we want to discuss the main feature okay so when we look at this pie chart and when we look at this table what do we notice what is the main feature that we notice right away okay and you don't really have to you don't really have to look at the numbers specifically so much I would just kind of glance at deforestation over cultivation over grazing and then glance here at these specific main figures so are these slices even you don't even have to look at the percent so much you can just look at the slices and there should be a piece of information that becomes very evident right away using good critical thinking so Beck John says all three reasons have a similar percent of contribution globally right back John so globally right internationally they seem to be fairly similar these three right 30% 28% 35% they roughly each make up about 1/3 of this problem right now when we look at the table is the same information still true okay Beck John too much detail there majah too much detail that's something more for the body paragraphs okay so keep it simpler here when you look at deforestation over cultivation over grazing for these three regions do you still have the same one-third one-third one-third proportion as we have globally here and again for those high band scores you definitely do need to have this kind of analysis Charlie says no no you don't okay that's it that's the information that you need okay so from that you can write the main feature all right exactly so no it's not don't worry about the highest the lowest yet the major contribution of each region region differs that's right Natalie okay good miss Nikki for OVA alright so right that overview okay I'm going to do the same sorry not overview but main feature so right the main feature I'm going to do the same put it in your own words and then we'll take a look alright so all right and keep it simple got lots to write here okay just move this down and then we'll compare here we go okay let's see what you have so BEC John says at first glance it is apparent that all three reasons have almost the same extent of degradation level however this is not the case for specific regions yeah back John for specific regions case in regions for specific regions reads better and I see you're making a little correction there back John as well okay all right yeah worldwide is missing or to paraphrase it beg John globally right Hassan says it can be seen that nearly 90 percent of land degradation is caused by human intervention such as over grazing cultivation and deforestation Hassan we don't use tree clearance its it sounds like trees are on sale no its deforestation or cutting down forests okay or the forestry industry okay and moreover it's most affected in Europe House on that last sentence it's more for your analysis okay all right Elena says looking at the diagram more precisely it is evident Elena looking at the diagram more precisely comma it is evident that land degradation is almost the same for the three reasons worldwide not for other is not included here right it's a small percentage it's only seven so carefully Lena with information mistakes they cost you especially at the high bands in the academic exam okay whereby they are very quite promptly force by whereas they vary quite promptly for specific okay so one more time Elena looking at the diagram more precisely comma it is evident that land degradation is almost the same for the three major reasons worldwide comma whereas they vary quite promptly for specific regions period Charlie at a glance comma it is clear that over grazing over cultivation deforestation have almost similar percentages globally for land decayed whereas for specific reason for specific regions like Europe North America and Oceania this percentage these percentages significantly differ charlie sin okay muck suit at first glance that is explicit that over grazing comma deforestation comma and over grazing are about the same percent degradation okay Violeta Castro it can be seen that globally there are three main causes for land degradation and then your continuing from there okay dr. Krishna on the firt at first glimpse not on the first glimpse it's kind of awkward at first glimpse all of the three major reasons of land decay are responsible globally equal vocally equal vocally meaning about the same amount although they vary in particular regions dr. krishna you're missing the equal vocally it means roughly the same okay that word is like this okay equal vocally it's a nice new vocabulary thing for many of you so the same amount okay of course this is where lexical resource can help you to be more concise so the same amount three words one word equal vocally plus of course that's high level vocabulary okay all right this is what I have so immediately it is clear that the specified three reasons for land decay are roughly equally damaging globally notice how I used specified three reasons so I definitely want to avoid using over grazing over cultivation deforestation over and over again the one way that you can do that is it's a specified reason so over cultivation over grazing and deforestation those are specified when we have the term other in the legend or in the graph its unspecified okay so specified the names are given versus unspecified the names are not given I hope that that's clear so that's kind of one way that I can make it more concise okay now notice that for my overview I am using more complex grammar now so I'm using my semicolon and comma with the however to join in the second element which is however they greatly vary not ery but a ry careful with the spelling when observing more specific territories territories another way to see regions okay alright so now what I want to do is mark my points for comparison okay so I have my pie chart here and I'm not going to spend too much time on this it's quite simple so one two three four I can probably write and report this and just maybe two sentences now this should be a paragraph okay so when you have multiple graphs especially when it goes from general to specific you should write that as two separate paragraphs okay it's not absolutely important but it looks better all right so that's my next tip I'm gonna quickly write that up for you again when it's um before and after you might be able to do it in one paragraph okay like showing a map or a diagram of before it what it looks like and what it will look like after you can do the comparison one paragraph but when you have this kind of general to specific I definitely recommend doing it in two paragraphs so I think one of you asked me how many paragraphs should this essay have I would suggest for this essay to have four paragraphs overview body 1 body 2 and summary that clear that's good that's clear alright so overview body one body two summary that's what I would do with this alright so tip number four alright when you have combination graphs it's logic so always when you're not sure students rely on your logic ok rely on your critical thinking okay so when you have combination graphs which give general and then specific information it makes sense to write a paragraph for each meaning you finish with four paragraphs introduction which is the same as the overview okay that's one not two okay plus body one general of course that's the general always start with the general don't ever start with the specific yeah that would be counterintuitive and then plus body to which is the specific and then you would have your summary equals your four paragraphs okay no dr. Krishna it shouldn't take you more than twenty minutes to complete it should still only take you twenty minutes make sure to take out the key elements and of course what I said keep it concise so your word count is still around two hundred if you're going for Ben seven eight nine okay maybe a little bit less somebody asked can I do one eighty yeah you can but your word count doesn't necessarily need to increase much but you do have to be more concise okay so really focus on writing concise essays and your professors in university will love you for that as well alright okay so first let's write this first let's write this paragraph about these figures here we can go most to least and then the insignificant other so globally so over grazing came so over grazing is really animal farming it's another way that you can say it over cultivation is food crop so growing food crops and deforestation is cutting down trees and cutting down forests okay so paraphrase and then write okay BEC John I see you're already moving along which is great I'm going to do the same I'm gonna go into body paragraph one here and then we'll take a comparison afterwards okay so all right so is mine let's see what you've come up with Beck John says going into more detail it is evident that over grazing has slightly more contribution to global land decay at 35 percent while deforestation and cultivation make up 30% and 28 percent respectively you don't need the other parts there but John just 28% comma respectively concise students concise when you're writing this essay I really want you to look at what you've written and then make it more concise okay all right our son says to begin with animal farming makes up 35 percent of the total land decay internationally while cutting down trees and agriculture account for the other 30 and 28 percent respectively and 7 percent for other ok yeah son it's it's not bad let me read that one more time oh son so to begin with animal farming makes up 35 percent of the total land decay while cutting down trees agriculture and other account for 30 28 and 7% respectively so just a couple of slight Corrections how son the way that I read it the second time ok that's what works best okay Pavan says going into more detail it's clear that cattle rearing has a major cause of land degradation contributing about one third followed by cutting down trees at 30 percent Pavan not bad but puffin careful cattle rearing is cattle refers to just cows and their family of animals but here it's over grazing and it's not just cattle there's also sheep for example in New Zealand and Australia there there's massive massive sheep farms so the picture shows a cow but it's a little bit misleading pavan there's a lot of other kinds of animal grazing going on as well cattle it's a big one no doubt probably the biggest of the animals but there are some other big groups like sheep okay so careful to be accurate with the information all right Charlie says looking into more detail we see that over grazing has the highest percentage for land degradation which is 35 percent followed by over cultivation and deforestation which is 30 and 28 percent respectively very nice charlie yeah the other is not that important I mean you can report it if you're going for that ban 9 it's not super important though okay Elena says looking at the pie chart in more detail it is clear that grazing careful Elena with the spelling gazing is a different word gazing means to stare takes the first place and land degradation ending up with 35 percent followed by deforestation and crop production which are 30 and 20 percent respectively yeah so of course here students you definitely want to have some good paraphrasing going on which is nice pooja says taking an insight taking further insight pooja the better expression to start there as taking further insight we see that over grazing of land by animals has topped the lists slightly at 7% compared to deforestation which is closely followed by over cultivation at 2% less logically right okay put you're not bad because we talked about the 130 each right so you can do it that way you just have to be very careful not to lose your reader okay magis Eze although all three causes stand at similar percentages animal graze animal farming is the highest with 35% comma over cultivation and deforestation affect land degradation 30 and 28 percent respectively maha one really important correction don't mix although and however like that in the same sentence it's a double negative it's a big negative for coherence okay so you basically lose half band score right away for combining double negatives so be very very careful okay all right students members that's body paragraph one here's my body paragraph one acknowledging the pie chart in more detail internationally animal farming is the greatest cause of land decay and 35% followed by the harvesting of trees at 30% and in close third place crop production at 28% while other contribute while other contributors make up a mere 7% use these qualitative kinds of expressions okay in your writing like mere 7% close third place I know that some of you are doing that greatest cause so that's good okay keep doing that that's what we want to see for those high band scores and of course now body two will be more detail from the table okay and then the summary should be an interesting explanation of what we not an interesting point that can be learned from observing these graphs without giving a subjective opinion I don't have time for those two paragraphs students but I will put those up with the completed essay on to our YouTube community board so you can see the remainder last two paragraphs of what that would look like and I'll do that later in the week maybe Sunday okay until then members I definitely challenge you to finish a body paragraph to in the conclusion I you have a pretty good idea of what you need to do and of course in the summary your interesting point should combine both the pie chart and the table okay yeah so Beck John I'll show the points for the table definitely one more time so this is what the table looks like so in the table you definitely want to compare the differences please don't report every single figure okay you definitely shouldn't do that report the interesting ones like zero eleven point three or nine seven five a little bit more balanced right and of course make a comparison of totals as well alright so use your critical thinking pull out those key elements and comparisons between these three regions okay and between these main contributors to land degradation alright now I'll let you think about that okay the key here is for you to learn how to fish of course you will have the example completed by me or a my end for the weekend okay so you'll be able to compare it okay yes Elena it's a tough job I agree but it's one that pays off so try it okay try it and then I'll show you the sample after alright again my hint okay just really quickly is observe the totals that's really important okay and then observe the key comparisons where here you have double of this somewhere in between here you have a fair bit of variance as well right so notice those key elements okay all right coming up in 30 minutes everybody who's watching listening section parts one and two practice with some strategy to become a member of our channel you just click the join button beside the subscribe button on our channel and then you can join in with all of our wonderful members thank you members for your hard work thank you Elena for this request it was a good request and again sorry that we ran at a time but such as life and of course you need to challenge yourself as well so I look forward to seeing some of those finished essays in my email bye for now everyone see you shortly in half an hour for listening much love from Budapest bye bye

Channel: AcademicEnglishHelp

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Keywords: IELTS writing task 1, diagram, pie chart, line graph, bar chart, flow-chart, IELTS descriptions, International English Language Testing System, English examination, writing for graphs, writing for charts, writing for tables, IELTS task 1, Lesson, Teacher, Learn, Student, Lessons, Learning, Free, Intro, Tutorial, IELTS task 1 explain, IELTS task 1 learning, IELTS task 1 descriptions

Id: sHcpFu3iM-Q

Length: 54min 56sec (3296 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 30 2020