Describing Graphs

Task one of the writing module involves writing about a chart or some other kind of graphical information. Write at least 150 words, and spend 20 minutes.

A typical question might be

"Write a report for a university lecturer describing the information in the charts below."

This is tricky at first, but with a lot of practice, you'll become good at it.

Don't repeat information already given in the title or question. But your first paragraph should introduce what you see.

The first chart shows how the income that Morocco generated from fishing canged between the years of 1982 and 2003. The second chart shows various economic sectors and what percentage of the country's total income they formed in 2003

A lot of the graphs show variations over time, so remember to use the simple past tense when describing what happened at specific times in the past.

The amount of money generated from fishing climbed from 0.3 billion dollars in 1982 to the year 2000, where it peaked at 4.3 billion dollars. It then fell . . .

Use the perfect tense for things that have changed in the past, but defined against the present, and with no particular time expression.

Divide your answer into paragraphs; perhaps one paragraph for each item shown, or one paragraph for each year. It depends; so be careful. And don't use too many.

Make sure sentences inside each paragraph connects to each other in a logical way.

In 2003 fishing generated just 13 percent of the country's income, making it the second smallest sector of the ecomy. Only agriculture, at 2%, yielded a smaller fraction

Vary your word use and try not to use the same word each time, especially when describing the numbers.

The biggest sector was tourism, creating 26% of the country's income. The second segment was industry which produced 24%. The smallest area of economic activity was agriculture generating a tiny 2%

Try to get in a nice conclusion

It can be seen that the fishing industry, a thriving part of the ecomony at the turn of the century underwent a slowdown in the following years, overtaken by other sectors.