How to Write About a Table (Task 1 Writing)

“Once upon a time, there was a beautiful wooden table. It was round and made of the finest mahogany, and it stood proudly in the home of a wealthy business man…”

WAIT! Not that kind of table!

This kind of table:

This chart gives information about the proportion of people from various age groups and family statuses who are currently living in poverty in SomeCity, along with a figure giving the exact number of families in destitution.

Like many other Task 1 Essays, your first goal should be to make a general statement about the information. In this case, we have a clear general statement. What do you think it should be?

In this case, we can make a very general statement such as:

From the table, we can see that the percentage of people living in poverty varies significantly between different family and income groups.

The next step should be to find the most notable features. In a table, this is generally fairly easy, because we can always look for the smallest and largest numbers.

In this case, which two categories have the lowest percentages of people living in poverty?

It's clear that elderly couples, couples with no children, and single aged people experienced the lowest rates of poverty.

What do these categories have in common?

Generally, couples and individuals who are not responsible for children are least likely to live in destitution.

After stating the general trend, give an example to illustrate your point:

The percentage of elderly couples living in poverty was just 4% or 48,000 individuals.

Which two categories have the largest percentages of people living in poverty?

Single people, either with or without children, are more likely to be poverty-stricken.

Give another example to illustrate your point:

The highest rate of poverty can be found in the single parent group, with around 21% of families or 232,000 individuals.

Now we're almost finished!

Important Hints for This Topic

• Always use the present tense, unless you are given a specific date in the past.
• Do not give opinions or include background reasons!
• Use only information you are given.
• Make sure to state a general trend, then give an example.

Here is an ideal sample essay for the topic above:

This table gives information about the proportion of people living in poverty in SomeCity and categorises the information based on type of household. It also provides precise figures as to the number of families in each group. We can see that the total percentage of households living in poverty is about 11%, which represents nearly 2 million individual households overall.

Generally, couples tend to have much lower rates of poverty than single people, either with or without children. Older couples are the least likely to suffer from poverty with a proportion amount of just 4%. Couples with no children are also unlikely to live in destitution, with a poverty rate of just 7% or 211,000 households. Although couples with children have a higher rate of poverty than those without them, they still have the relatively low proportion of 12%. This accounts for a notable number of individual households, however, accounting for 933,000 families.

Expressed as a percentage of households by category, single parents are more likely to experience poverty in SomeCity, with a proportion of 12% or more than 200,000 families. The percentage of childless singles with financial strife is also quite high, accounting for 19% of that group.
In sum, even while there are a significant number of couples with children living in poverty, the group with the highest percentage of households in poverty consists of single-parent families.

Describe An Open Air Market (Speaking Part 2)

You speaking score is judged on four distinct criteria. The first is fluency and coherence (your ability to speak continuously and at a natural pace), grammatical range and accuracy (using grammar well and using complex sentences), pronunciation (your ability to say words and sentences with appropriate pronunciation and stress), and lexical resource (your use of vocabulary.)

One way that you can improve your vocabulary for Speaking Part 2 is to improve your use of adjectives. Since many Part 2 questions will ask you to describe something, you need to use sophisticated and accurate words to speak about whatever it happens to be.

PLEASE try to avoid repeating the following words:

Good     Bad     Happy     Sad     Nice    Special    Important 

They will cause your examiner to fall asleep!

Instead of these simple words, try to use participial adjectives. Participial adjectives are -ed or -ing forms of common verbs, but they are used as adjectives. For example:

The excited children jump up and down when they see the ice cream truck.

The history text was highly engaging and so she read it well into the night.

In the first sentence "excited" is a participial adjective describing the emotion of the children. In the second sentence "engaging" is a participial adjective to describe the feelings CAUSED by the book.

There's a wide range of participial adjectives that you can use:

                  -ED            -ING

                bored             boring

                excited           exciting

                interested        interesting

                amazed            amazing

                engaged           engaging

                fascinated        fascinating

                surprised         surprising

                involved          involving

                thrilled          thrilling

                frightened        frightening

                bustled           bustling

                overwhelmed       overwhelming

The MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember about participial adjectives is when to use "-ed" and when to use "-ing." 

Remember: The "-ed" form refers to FEELINGS and should therefore only be used to describe people or very emotional animals!

The "-ing" form is active and means that the subject is CAUSING a feeling.

Look at the following sentences:

Maria is bored.            Maria is boring.

One of them is a very rude thing to say! Do you know which one? It's the second sentence, since it states that "Maria causes boredom." Don't invite her to your party!

Listen to the Speaking Part 2 Response to the following question:

Describe an open-air market which you enjoyed visiting. You should say:

• where the market is located
• what the market sells
• how big the market is

And explain why you enjoyed going there.

Listen and read the text below. Pay attention to the use of participial adjectives.

Right. Well, when I lived in Korea, it was sometimes difficult for me to find the things that I needed in normal shops, so a friend recommended that I check out a market called Namdaemun. I know I’m not pronouncing that correctly, sorry! Anyway, we took two or three buses to get there, and when we arrived, it was absolutely staggering. I had never seen such a bustling market in my life! The stalls were packed into all the streets and alleyways, stretching for several blocks as far as we could see. Vendors were selling just about every product you can imagine. They had shoes, socks, jewelry, electronics, household items, toys,…just…everything, right? To be honest, I was a little overwhelmed. There were just too many choices and I ended up going home with just a headache and a pair of socks. On the plus side, the Namdaemun market had excellent street food, for instance, fried rice with kimchi and tokpoki. Those are some of my favourite Korean snacks. So in the end I really enjoyed eating food and exploring with my friends, but I don’t think I’d go back there. It was just too hectic.

Here are two more excellent sample answers to this question. The first is by a native English speaker, and the second is spoken by a Chinese student. This response would likely receive an 8 or 8.5. Pay attention to the variety of adjectives used. Also, listen for sentence stress and pronunciation.

OK. I’ll talk about a market that I visited in Prague, the Christmas market. These’re common in lots of European cities. At first I wasn’t that excited about going, but my girlfriend kind of dragged me along because she said it would be romantic, and I ended up having a pretty good time. Anyway, Prague is a gorgeous old city, and the Old Town Square has some buildings that date back to the 12^th century. This is where they hold the Christmas market. There are hundreds of stalls selling arts and crafts and food as well as Christmas decorations. Musicians play classical music and sing carols while you walk around, and all the stalls are decorated with lights and wreaths and those kinds of things. It’s very nice, and ok, I’ll admit it’s pretty romantic. Unlike most outdoor markets, this one takes place in the dead of winter, and uh, it’s freezing. But the best thing about the Christmas market is drinking hot mead to keep warm. Mead is an alcoholic drink, that’s brewed from honey. At the markets they serve it warm and spiced with cinnamon and… maybe cloves. Anyway, it’s just the thing on a cold day and keeps you going while you shop for gifts. If you ever visit Prague, I highly recommend seeing the Christmas markets.

One market I really enjoyed visiting was a farmer’s market here in Auckland. It takes place every Sunday near the harbor, and it’s one of the largest farmer’s markets in New Zealand. I think there are about… 30 stalls. … It’s nice because you can do your shopping with a nice view of the sea. Like most farmer’s markets, it mainly sells fruits and vegetables. You can choose from a variety of fresh produce, from ordinary things like apples and bananas to exotic fruits like feijoas. …Buying fruits and vegetables from a farmer’s market is a good idea because they usually cost less than at the supermarket. There’s also a wide range of specialty goods that you can’t find elsewhere. For instance, you can buy handmade jam and honey which isn’t available at the supermarket. These items are a little pricey, but it’s usually worth it! … I enjoy outdoor markets because they’re good places to get together with friends when the weather is nice. This market is a little different from the open air markets in China, but it’s still an enjoyable place to go.

Should The Media Report on Celebries? (Task 2 Writing)

The following topic occurred several times on IELTS exams in 2013. Read the excellent sample answer below and look for:

• The writer's main opinion, stated clearly in the introduction paragraph of the essay.
• Two reasons to support the main opinion.
• Specific examples, including detailed descriptions to support the reasons.
• A conclusion that summarises the ideas and restates the writer's opinion.

Nowadays, the media spends far more time reporting on celebrity gossip when they should be covering more serious issues. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement? Give reasons and examples to support your answer.

There has been some debate in recent years about whether newspapers and other media spend too much time reporting about celebrities. Although information about celebrities can be interesting, my belief is that the purpose of newspapers is to report only on essential world events. In the following essay, I will outline the reasons for this view.

Undoubtedly, the world is more interconnected than ever before. We are global citizens, and as such, we have a responsibility to learn about the world around us. Events such as natural disasters, political uprisings, and humanitarian crises have a significant impact on our lives. Unfortunately though, we sometimes fail to hear about these important occurrences because our media outlets are full of stories about Beyonce and Lady Gaga. This is not to say that celebrities are entirely unimportant, only that their private lives do not belong alongside the normal news.

Secondly, although celebrities are public figures to a certain degree, they still have a right to privacy. So-called celebrity news tends to report only the worst and most salacious stories about sex and drugs. We should not entertain ourselves by enjoying their misfortunes and sorrows. Aside from invading the privacy of the famous person being discussed, these stories also serve as a negative influence on children. If celebrity news must be reported, I believe that it should focus on the good deeds of well-known individuals rather than their terrible mistakes.

Thanks to the internet, we all have a great deal of information at our fingertips. While it might be interesting to keep up with celebrity news now and then, I believe that the main focus of mainstream media should be to keep us informed about serious issues in the world. With the proper information, we may be able to make the world a better place.

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                                                                                                                                   NZ© Andrea Holland 2014