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hey everybody this is Ellen and I'm back
0:29
with another tutoral tutorial um another
0:31
writing tutorial this time I decided to
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give my two cents about um task one
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um there's so much information out there
0:46
about task one that I thought I would
0:49
try to give you guys something that I at
0:51
least haven't seen a lot of um so
0:54
specifically I wanted to talk about
0:57
tables now a little bit of the good news
1:00
and the bad news with the tables um I'll
1:03
start with the bad news first the bad
1:05
news is is I hate them they're my least
1:11
one um partially because I I'm a really
1:15
visual person and it's really easy for
1:18
me to say when I see a line graph or a
1:21
bar chart or a pie chart it's really
1:23
easy for me to say oh yeah well that's
1:24
the highest that's the lowest this is
1:27
you know the biggest change etc etc but
1:29
when when you're looking at a table that
1:32
information becomes much harder to
1:37
so um I personally when I am either
1:42
grading uh a task one or if I'm trying
1:45
to write my own kind of sample for it
1:47
which I do from time to time I find
1:50
tables the hardest so I don't know if
1:52
you agree with me maybe you do maybe you
1:53
think they're easy if you do wonderful
1:57
secret um so that's the bad news the
2:01
good news is is that they don't really
2:02
show up a lot in the exam uh based on
2:06
all the information that I hear from my
2:08
students from um examiners who I speak
2:13
to they're not the most common um and
2:18
when they do appear they usually appear
2:21
in conjunction with some other um type
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of diagram so it could be for example a
2:30
really minor minimal sort of table that
2:34
just sort of supplements information
2:37
easier that said occasionally you do get
2:42
a table that um is just there on its own
2:47
and uh what I wanted to talk to you all
2:50
about today specifically was two types
2:54
of tables uh tables with really little
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and tables with tons of information both
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of these types uh present some really
3:07
different challenges the tables with
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really little information presents the
3:13
challenge where um test takers then say
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well gosh you know how can I possibly
3:20
write 150 words when there's so little
3:23
data how can I possibly expand my answer
3:27
um in order to reach a word minimum on
3:30
the other hand you have these tables
3:33
with sometimes 30 or even sometimes 40
3:37
pieces of information and then people
3:38
say wow how can I possibly group this
3:41
information together how can I include
3:44
all the key points when I can't even
3:46
locate them because they're all in
3:48
numerical form and it just becomes
3:50
really complicated well um that's the
3:53
goal of this uh tutorial to help you um
3:57
and guide you with how you can deal with
4:01
challenges um okay so you can see that I
4:05
have up here a really really simple
4:08
table um I would love to tell you where
4:10
I found it I can't because I don't know
4:13
what the source is uh it's just one of
4:15
the tables I found on the internet used
4:18
a bunch of times in a bunch of different
4:20
sites so if you made this um bar type
4:25
table somebody out there um I would love
4:27
to give you credit but I don't know who
4:29
you are so let's assume I'm giving the
4:32
creator of this table some credit okay
4:35
um so the first thing that creates a
4:39
challenge here at least from my
4:42
experience is not only that there's very
4:45
few there's very few pieces of data here
4:48
specifically we have what is it seven we
4:50
have seven pieces of data okay um but um
4:55
what I find is that a lot of you
4:58
diligent IELTS students students you try
5:01
really hard to learn this relevant IELTS
5:03
um academic task one vocabulary where
5:07
you're talking about increases and
5:09
you're talking about decreases and um a
5:13
sudden rise or dramatic fall or you know
5:16
a three-fold increase and then suddenly
5:19
you get to something like this and you
5:21
can't use any of that language uh why
5:25
because we're not talking about any
5:27
increases any decreases any fall or any
5:30
Rises it's what we call a static
5:33
diagram so um what that means is that
5:37
you're going to have to um refer to some
5:41
vocabulary which is also really
5:43
necessary for I Els which is more uh the
5:48
comparison okay so in other words saying
5:52
that something is twice as high as
5:54
something else or something is um four
5:58
times higher than something else so this
6:01
is the kind of language you're going to
6:02
use rather than this language of
6:05
movement like increases
6:07
decreases uh three-fold and so
6:11
forth okay so I actually uh went ahead
6:15
and I did a model for this um I may or
6:19
may not share it I'm not sure but uh
6:23
what I found is that my model was about
6:27
161 words could I have beefed it up a
6:29
little more yeah I could have um but I
6:33
think it's pretty indicative of what you
6:36
could do for this so let's
6:39
start with um how I approached it first
6:42
of all you need to understand what
6:44
you're looking at um one thing that I
6:47
find in a lot of test takers task ones
6:50
is they misunderstand
6:54
this okay all households so what they
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fail to realize is that this is
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essentially the average of all of
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this and that's an important piece of
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information because um this is kind of
7:13
own okay uh a lot of people end up
7:17
writing responses where they take this
7:20
as a seventh category and it really
7:23
isn't like I said it's just the average
7:26
of all of these figures okay and that's
7:28
an important distinction to make okay so
7:33
uh we've talked a little bit about the
7:34
vocabulary we've talked a little bit
7:35
about making sure you understand this
7:38
now when you have only six pieces well
7:43
in this case seven pieces of information
7:46
um it's pretty clear that you're going
7:48
to write about every single one of them
7:50
so first of all I would have to say that
7:53
when we're talking about key information
7:56
and those of you who have um listened to
7:59
my my um essay Corrections you'll hear
8:03
me sometimes talk about key pieces of
8:05
information well because there's so
8:08
little Happening Here everything is key
8:11
um but generally speaking the key pieces
8:14
of information are all of your
8:16
categories so um all of these categories
8:21
here uh the family types every single
8:24
one of them is a key piece of
8:26
information so you're absolutely going
8:27
to have to refer to each one you don't
8:30
want to leave a single one
8:34
similarly all of this is also key pieces
8:37
of information but generally what I'm
8:39
what I want you to understand is that
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all of your categories on the
8:44
outside here on this Frame those are
8:47
always your key pieces of information
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you don't have to talk in detail about
8:51
every single one if you've got a lot but
8:54
the categories at the very least should
8:56
be mentioned by name if nothing else
9:00
okay so um what I did here all right all
9:04
right I'll share my at least my
9:06
introduction my overview there we go
9:08
okay so um the table provides
9:11
information regarding the percentages of
9:13
people living in poverty divided into
9:15
different household types overall single
9:18
people living with or without children
9:21
have the highest rates of poverty
9:23
so uh why did I say this single people
9:26
living with or without children because
9:28
I'm referring ref in to this piece of
9:32
parent okay and single uh no
9:38
children all right that's why I phrase
9:40
it like that so you can see that I've
9:42
done a lot of rephrasing um of the words
9:45
here uh but not so much that it's
9:48
something totally different uh but
9:51
certainly using some synonyms and
9:52
showing my ability to use some synonyms
9:55
the other thing that I want to point
9:56
your attention out to is the tense I
9:59
used now there is absolutely no
10:02
information about when this table is
10:06
happening and so uh I've decided to use
10:09
the present tense um and that's okay you
10:12
can do that if there's absolutely no
10:17
similarly you can use the past tense the
10:21
point is is you have to be consistent
10:23
there should be no flip-flopping of
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tenses so if you started it with the
10:28
present tense continue with the present
10:30
tense um and again if you started it
10:32
with a past just be consistent and use
10:36
okay so um what I then did in this and
10:41
this is what I suggest here is starting
10:42
with this since you've understood that
10:46
average okay I start with that and then
10:48
I use it as like my frame of reference
10:51
throughout um you have to mention this
10:54
this is really important you can even
10:56
see that it's in bold uh what I then
10:59
then decided to do now I didn't have to
11:02
start with this but I chose to since it
11:04
was the average what I then decided to
11:06
do was I de start decided to talk about
11:10
parents okay at 21% and then I refer
11:14
back to the whole all the households
11:18
saying that this is almost double this
11:22
figure is almost double this figure okay
11:26
and then I go on to talk about single
11:28
note children saying that it's close
11:32
behind this figure okay but with two
11:38
less then where do we go the obvious
11:41
choice is to talk about couples with
11:45
children um now that's one way to do it
11:48
and when I did my little model that's
11:50
how I chose to do it um you didn't have
11:53
to in fact what you could have done here
11:56
is you could have talked about the
11:59
all right which is these two figures
12:01
here um I just decided for Simplicity
12:04
just to go from high to low um like I
12:07
said you don't have to you could have
12:08
then talked about these middle ones and
12:11
you'll see why did it like this though
12:14
so I talked about couples with children
12:16
and the thing that I found really
12:17
interesting is how close it is to the
12:20
average um for all households okay so I
12:24
even used a linking word like
12:26
surprisingly 12% of couples with
12:28
children are also under the poverty line
12:33
933 th000 people so you can see that
12:37
these figures are there and they're in
12:40
um in parentheses so you could decide to
12:44
pick and choose when and if you would
12:47
want to include them I did include them
12:49
not throughout my answer but um I kind
12:53
of picked a few here and there um I'd
12:56
say maybe three times I used these which
12:59
is okay um could you do more yeah but
13:03
yeah I guess you could use them for each
13:05
of the the figures that you decid to
13:06
talk about uh but like I said I decided
13:08
to refer to these numbers maybe like
13:10
three times okay so then I did something
13:16
for the rest of the answer um that I
13:20
think will help really not only with
13:23
this particular one but with lots of
13:25
different types of um task ones is I
13:29
decided to group I decided to
13:33
um start my next paragraph with a
13:37
sentence like this the remaining
13:40
categories all have less than 10%
13:44
poor okay so what is that it's
13:47
essentially an introductory sentence and
13:50
you're going to need to use things like
13:52
this like I said before to beef up your
13:57
um so then you can give specific data so
14:02
that's when I then started talking about
14:04
couples with no children and then I
14:06
talked about I grouped these guys
14:08
together too so I grouped the single AED
14:11
with the Aged couples together saying
14:14
that the lowest figures for poverty were
14:17
found in the elderly or are found in the
14:20
elderly uh specifically 6% of single-
14:24
AED people are under the poverty line
14:29
um of aged couples uh live in poverty
14:33
okay so if you do it like this and you
14:36
provide some of this
14:39
comparison some of this grouping using
14:41
some introductory sentences at the start
14:43
of a new paragraph then you can really
14:47
give a lot more uh meat to your answer
14:52
okay so since we've talked about how to
14:54
deal with a simple table I now want to
14:58
look at a complex table again I don't
15:01
remember where I got this from if you
15:04
created this table then thank you very
15:07
much I give you credit
15:09
um so let's take a look at this when I
15:13
first saw this I was so overwhelmed just
15:16
looking at all these numbers if you look
15:21
42 pieces of data look you've
15:25
got um seven age categories and then you
15:29
have six categories of
15:33
activity okay so um 42 pieces of data
15:37
which is really overwhelming okay
15:40
so uh you may ask yourself well how on
15:43
Earth am I going to organize this well
15:46
like I said I'm a really visual person
15:49
so looking at this I found it very
15:51
challenging uh so take a look at what I
15:54
did I actually uh created a bar chart
15:58
out of the data that was in the table
16:01
now I did this really just to help me
16:04
kind of get a handle on this information
16:07
and really see where the trends are
16:10
because like I said before when you look
16:11
at 42 pieces of information you may have
16:15
no idea where to start so uh suddenly
16:19
when I saw it like this it just made so
16:22
much more sense to me now obviously
16:24
you're not going to be able to do this
16:26
the day of your exam uh you're not not
16:29
going to be able to just sit there and
16:30
and construct a bar chart but um it will
16:36
um an idea that you know what it's
16:39
really not that overwhelming all you
16:42
have to look for is is Trends and
16:45
similarities in the numbers so when you
16:48
look at it like this and it becomes
16:50
super clear that watching videos is the
16:52
most popular Cinema is consistently the
16:56
lowest but also pretty low is
16:59
socializing with um four or more
17:03
people and then you've got different
17:06
things happening with these activities
17:10
now the other one of the things I talked
17:13
about in the um sample table is how
17:17
important it is to group information
17:20
well if you look at the actual
17:22
activities uh themselves you can group
17:25
them in terms of not numbers necessarily
17:30
but in terms of activity itself so look
17:32
at what I mean you've got two different
17:35
activities here that deal with so
17:37
socializing what differs is how many
17:40
people you're socializing with uh
17:42
similarly you've got two
17:45
different activities that deal with
17:51
and watching TV and videos is kind of
17:56
similar to going to the cinema okay so
18:00
suddenly you've taken your six
18:02
categories and you can effectively
18:07
three but then talking about how those
18:11
figures differ okay so let's take a look
18:13
again at that bar chart so if I were now
18:16
going to describe this I would talk
18:20
about watching TV and uh TV videos um
18:25
and Cinema I would put them together I
18:27
would say this was clearly the most most
18:29
uh popular among all the age groups with
18:32
the exception of people in their 40s
18:35
whereas Cinema was consistently the
18:37
least popular uh with less than 50 uh
18:45
okay now of course you're also going to
18:47
want to talk about the individual age
18:49
groups so you'll mention that
18:53
teenagers participated in this activity
18:55
the most followed by people uh in their
18:58
70s uh and we already talked about
19:00
people in their 40s and you can say that
19:02
um it's pretty similar here as well
19:05
right so the teenagers engaged in this
19:07
activity the most uh followed by people
19:10
in their 70s okay and their 20 in their
19:16
well so you don't have to go into a ton
19:19
of detail you don't have to talk about
19:23
um those kind of middle figures um like
19:27
I said because you're C certainly not
19:29
going to talk about 42 pieces of
19:31
information so you've talked about the
19:33
teens you've talked about people in
19:34
their 70s so that's one two three four
19:38
you've talked about this that's five
19:39
pieces of information um and you could
19:42
pretty much be done with it okay so you
19:44
can be done with these two categories so
19:47
then you have um a decision to make say
19:50
okay well what do I talk about next um
19:54
as far as my logic is concerned I would
19:56
probably go to the exercise category
19:59
since you've got this really um you've
20:02
got this figure that really stands out
20:04
right here uh maybe it'll be clear if I
20:06
show it to you on the
20:08
table okay so here it is and look at
20:11
that it's the only place other than
20:13
watching TV and videos that you see this
20:17
large number right there okay so that's
20:19
the kind of thing you might want to
20:20
circle on your exam paper um that's
20:24
probably a good habit to get into as
20:25
well you know maybe underline some
20:27
things Circle some things so that they
20:31
out so um that's probably what I would
20:34
do first um assuming that we've talked
20:37
about TV videos and Cinema I would then
20:40
describe uh the E the uh exercise
20:44
preferences okay so um exercise is a
20:48
very popular activity um among various
20:51
age groups uh group exercise fares the
20:55
best for those who are in their team
21:02
year um and then I would say that this
21:06
figure declines considerably for each of
21:11
groups with people in their 60s and 70s
21:15
not participating in group in group
21:17
exercise at all in contrast uh
21:21
individual exercise is most popular with
21:26
people in their 30s and 40s okay
21:29
um and then I would mention maybe
21:31
another figure there as well either uh
21:35
one of the lows or um maybe say that
21:38
it's also very popular with teens and
21:40
people in their 70s interestingly
21:44
enough so let's take a look now at the
21:48
figures for socializing let's look at uh
21:51
the little bar chart I created to help
21:53
us with this okay so when you look at it
21:55
here it's pretty clear that for people
21:59
in their teens and 20s socializing in a
22:01
group of four or more was really popular
22:04
but then for everybody else it just
22:06
totally was less popular like almost not
22:09
at all uh in contrast socializing with
22:13
fewer than four people uh was popular
22:16
except of course for that um un that 20
22:19
and underg group or 20s and underg
22:22
grroup I should say okay so again you're
22:24
going to want to make some
22:26
um analyses there as
22:29
well so what you want to remember in
22:32
something like this is that you don't
22:35
have to give all of these pieces of
22:38
information you do have to group you
22:40
absolutely have to group some of them
22:42
together um you won't
22:45
mention all seven of these for each
22:48
category you'll pick the most important
22:51
ones you also may want to use ranges so
22:56
example um if we're talking about the TV
22:58
and video one you could have talked
23:03
um uh teenagers are at 12200 and people
23:10
1,100 and everyone else was either at
23:14
700 and Below or you could say that
23:20
between uh what figure is that uh 400
23:24
and 700 so this way you've included
23:27
everybody um I'm a huge fan of ranges
23:30
especially when you have things like
23:32
this okay um another place where you
23:35
could have used a range was here okay so
23:40
you could say uh if you're talking about
23:41
the socializing for people um
23:45
socializing with four people or
23:47
less you could write a sentence like
23:50
this you could say that
23:52
um people in their 30s spent 300 hours
23:57
socializing with four or fewer people
24:00
the lowest Figures were found for people
24:03
in their teens and 20s at 150 and the
24:07
remaining groups were between these two
24:09
figures okay so you're not um burdening
24:13
your answer with too too too many pieces
24:15
of data yet at the same time you are
24:18
giving all the important features that
24:20
you need to talk about okay so um that's
24:24
how I deal with really simple tables as
24:27
well as really difficult tables I hope
24:30
you've found this information helpful um
24:33
if you have any questions please feel
24:34
free to write us here at
24:39
uh also take a look at the online course
24:42
see if it's something that um you would
24:46
be able to sign up for tons of
24:48
information not just on task one but of
24:50
course on task two as well um and
24:53
there's also the ER the essay
24:55
Corrections that you can sign up for
24:58
which where we will happily correct your
25:00
essays and return them to you with lots
25:01
of feedback and lots of advice on how to
25:04
get the score you need okay so um keep
25:07
on writing good luck to all of you
25:30
thanks for listening to IP podcast.com
