Graph

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The chart below shows the proportion of graduates from Bluesky University in 2006 entering different employment sectors.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Write at least 150 words.  

Task 1 of the IELTS Writing test requires you to “summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.”  There are two important requirements in this task.

1. The information should be stated along with the reasons why it is an important information.
2. If there is a possibility compare some of the information.

Important information

This would mean that it is not necessary to use all the information in the graph.  However, in many instances candidates are forced to include all the information, otherwise they may not be able to complete 150 words.  But it should not end up just the listing of facts and figures.  You should qualify all the information you give.

The introduction is usually the reproduction of the question in your own words.  Please do not repeat the question, as it is.  For this, you need to read the question thoroughly and read all the information in the chart.  This will give you an overall picture of the graph.  The question is “The chart below shows the proportion of graduates from the Bluesky University in 2006 entering different employment sectors.”  This could be rephrased in this way. 

“The pie chart gives an overall picture of the carer options that Bluesky University graduates of 2006 chose after their university studies.”

You can also expand the introduction.  “The pie chart illustrates the career choices of Bluesky University’s 2006 graduates, giving the percentages who worked in each of the various sectors after finishing university.”

However, it is advisable to write a simple introduction and not to use language that you cannot handle comfortably. 

The body:   This is a pie chart where there are specific information given on a number of things.  It is not very difficult to pick important information from this chart.

For example:  The highest:

“Service industries attracted the highest proportion of graduates at 33%.” This sentence can also be structured differently.  The highest percentage of graduates from Bluesky University chose (went into, preferred) service industries as their career choice.  Now look at this sentence.  About one third (33.0%) of the Bluesky graduates went into service industries, which was the most preferred career option.  Instead of saying 33% it always better to use ‘one third’ because it adds weightage to your ‘lexical resource’. 

Look at all the above sentences.  Subject has been changed in all of them.  It is always advisable to change the subject of the sentence to present the information in a variety of ways.  Your language proficiency will definitely improve, if you practice this particular skill when preparing for the exam. 

Comparison:  Although we are asked to ‘make comparisons where relevant’, it is not necessary to do it, if there are no relevant comparisons. 

Here is a sentence that makes a comparison. “In contrast, sport attracted the least number of Bluesky graduates at 0.1%.”  There are other words that can be used to express comparison

-          in comparison

-          while

-          on the other hand

-          whereas

-          similarly

-          in contrast

etc.

Grouping information

Information is often grouped in order to condense it or to avoid repetition of vocabulary.  It is also an attractive way to present facts and compare them.

Eg:  “Just under half the students went into industry, with almost a third (33%) being attracted by service sector.  About half of them (16%) took up jobs in manufacturing.”

This can also be written in a different way.  “Just under half the students went into industries, with almost one third (33.0%) of the total graduates opting for the service sector and half that number (16%) preferring manufacturing.” 

Instead of using ‘third and ‘fourth’ position, you can write the sentence in the following way.  “Education and politics and government were the next most popular career choices, with the figures of 14.7% and 12.1% respectively.”  You can write it in this way. 

Look at the way we qualify the next information “The other significant career choices were science and technology (7.3%), the arts, entertainment and media (7.8%) and civil service (5.65%), accounting for more than one fifth of the total graduates. 

The last information can be presented in this way.  “The least popular choices included sport (0.1%), charity (0.3%) and other (2.8%) unspecified areas.  You can also use expressions like, ‘at the bottom line were’ etc. This sentence may be made more attractive in this way.  “The least popular choices included work in charitable sector and careers in sport, both of which were chosen by well under 1% of graduates.  Finally, 2.8%entered work in other unspecified sectors.

Conclusion

Conclusion is not necessary for graph, but if you really want to write one, try this option.  “Although Bluesky graduates chose a variety of career options, service and manufacturing industries were the most popular choices.”   This gives an overall picture of the chart.  Please remember that you should not use any figures in the conclusion.