hi everyone Chris here from Isleton
Vantage comm hope that you're all doing
well and in today's lesson we're gonna
look at task 1 line graphs now one of
the main issues with line graphs or task
1 academic in general is and students
over complicate them so it's not your
fault you not used to dealing with data
and not used to dealing with graphs and
the topics can be on funny things and
one of the things that I find is
students over complicate things and make
things way more difficult than they
really need to be so what I try and do
with my students is just simplify
everything as much as possible so that
on test day they know exactly what to do
and in their preparation they're able to
prepare in a way that takes all the
stress out of it and shows them exactly
what to do so we're going to show you
that in this lesson we're going to give
you a simple 5 step system for how to
write a task 1 line graph report and
this is just for academic sorry few
general training people you'll find
other general training videos and on
this YouTube channel so go and take a
look there also just to emphasize two
points number one this is a simplified
version of what you're going to get in
the real test just because I'm doing it
on the board and everything and don't
think that this is going to be as simple
as this and it'll be a little bit
they'll be a little bit more detail in
the real test but for the purposes of
demonstration I've simplified it a
little bit and number two this stuff
that I'm going to talk about today is
just for line graphs and so task 1
academic you might get a bar chart you
might get pie charts you might get a
table you might get multiple
combinations of those you might get a
process that you have to describe or a
map that you have to describe the stuff
that I'm going to talk about today is
just four line graphs and I what I do
with my students is again making making
it as simple as possible I treat each of
those differently I'll show them how to
think about them and do them and
individually like that okay so let's get
going
so five simple steps and let's start off
with step one so the first thing is to
understand so many of you in your
writing tests we'll just look at thee
and the line graph and time is an issue
so you're under pressure under stress
and you'll maybe do a brief plan look at
it very quickly and then start writing
so it's impossible to write and a good
task one response tasks one academic
response if you don't first understand
what you're writing about it doesn't
matter who you are or how good you are
at writing doesn't matter how much you
practiced or how good your teacher is if
you don't understand the thing you're
not going to be able to write about it
accurately so this is the the probably
the most important stage so let's have a
look at how we would understand this so
first of all you would have a look at
the the question here so the line graph
below shows active daily users on
Facebook in three different countries so
try and understand as much of this as
possible but do realize that you don't
have to understand everything in order
to write a good report so active daily
users you don't need to be mark
zuckerberg to understand what this means
or you don't have to have a really
in-depth knowledge of you know data on
the internet to really be able to write
a good report you might know kind of
what this means but what many of the
students that I work with tell me is
when they see one thing in a question
especially for task one academic and
they they feel that they don't perfectly
100% understand that thing that can
cause a lot of stress and they're
they're just like oh I don't know what
I'm doing don't worry don't panic if
there's something that you don't
understand a hundred percent you
probably have a very good idea of what
it means and just continue on so the
first thing is to understand this so
line graph you understand that what that
means active daily users you probably
understand what that means or most of
you will understand it kind of and
Facebook I'm sure you understand what
that is in three different countries
okay so the next thing we need to
understand is don't look at any of this
all right if you look at this first
you're going to get lost in all the data
and it can be very intimidating and
confusing so don't look at any of this
first right look at this first and then
have a look
the x-axis X is across that's a good way
to remember that X is across look at the
x-axis understand what that is okay so
have a look at this 2007 eight nine ten
eleven twelve thirteen okay so it's it's
data over time it is a dynamic set of
data over time and it starts in the past
and it ends in the past and it's from
2007 and increases up to 2004 so you
might be thinking I don't have time to
do all of this so you're not going to be
doing it as slowly as I'm doing it at
the moment
you'll be quickly looking at that then
quickly looking at their X and y axis so
do you understand what that means sure
that's no problem then have a look at
Vietnam Cambodia Thailand do you
understand what those are there are
three different countries all right so
we've understood what those are then
have a look here daily users in millions
all right so active daily users this is
the number here on the y-axis I'm under
10 million so 5 million 10 million 15
million 20 million 25 million so taking
30 seconds or one minute to fully
understand what this means makes this
part much much much easier and you'll be
much calmer you'll know exactly what
you're doing so now that you've
understood all of this then you can have
a look at the data and try and
understand the data so for a line graph
over time the the thing that you'll
normally see are this and again I'm not
oversimplifying this generally if you
look at real IELTS task 1 line graphs
you'll see normally one generally going
up when generally going down maybe one
staying the same or one fluctuating like
this so if you understand those it's
very important for your overview just
have a look and look at the data
generally you don't have to fully
understand everything right now you just
have to generally understand everything
so ignore that you've done that you've
understood everything and as you can see
if you break it down step by step as I
do with my students and it makes it much
much easier so you're going from
something that is very intimidating to
something that's as easy as 1 2 3 just
like ok yep that's simple I know exactly
how to
think about it and what to do the next
stage is very important planning that's
why I put it in red so it's very
important that we're going to talk about
the structure to use the general things
you're going to be doing and it's very
important just to note down a general
structure that you're going to use make
some notes on the key features on the
key data and that's an investment of
time that's very very worthy you you're
not going to waste that time and so I
would spend maybe five minutes in this
stage and I call this that the thinking
stage so understanding and planning just
doing all your thinking maybe spend
about five minutes not exactly five
minutes so some students when you tell
them five minutes they plan exactly for
five minutes you know two minutes - six
minutes something anywhere around that
don't get to hook up hung up on on on
time so this is the thinking stage and
then steps two to four are the writing
stage all right you're going to be
thinking of course in this but if we
break it break it up it makes it simple
and then step five is the checking stage
making sure everything is done properly
so step two we're gonna have to
paraphrase the question
all right so paraphrasing the question
is taking this and paraphrasing it
stating in it it with different words so
that means the same thing
so expressing it differently so that it
means the same thing and I'm not gonna
get into a whole lesson about
paraphrasing because that would take you
know hours or M itself and we don't have
time to do that and but you should learn
how to paraphrase it's very very
important that you learn how to do that
and because it's a really really good
test of your vocabulary and your grammar
and that's why it's important it's a
really good test of a student's ability
and so you should learn how to do that
so that will be your first paragraph
alright so your first paragraph is going
to be a part of you're going to
paraphrase the question skip a line and
then go into the overview nine there's a
huge there's a lot of conflicting and
confusing information about overviews
and some people call them conclusions
and some people say you should put them
at the end of
your of your response some people say
you could put them after it doesn't
really matter all that you should
understand about overviews and in this
context is they're not conclusions
all right conclusions are for your task
to response but a lot of teachers call
them conclusions incorrectly so when you
hear people talking about conclusions
they're probably talking about overviews
all right when I talk about overview I'm
talking about an overview because that's
what it is and and it doesn't really
matter where you put it all right I tell
my students to put it after because it
makes it much easier to think about and
but what you could do is you could put
it at the end if you want so write a
clear overview so for the purposes of
task task one line graphs what you're
going to do is you're going to be if
it's over time so line graphs are
normally over time so what you're going
to be doing is you're going to be
thinking about the general trends over
time for your overview this is different
for pie charts and tables and processes
and all those different things but for
the purposes of a line graph over time
which they nearly always are you're
looking for the general trends and they
are very very simple
so for Vietnam it goes up for Cambodia
it fluctuates for Thailand it goes done
remember you could put another one in
that stays kind of the same that stay
stable but it doesn't need to be any
more complicated than that again when I
was talking about students getting lost
in the data and they get so engrossed in
the data and get so confused with all
the data and over complicate everything
and then at the end of the lesson when I
when I share this with my students and I
said well your overview is basically one
goes up one goes down and one fluctuates
that's so simple
why did I not see that don't over
complicate everything for line graphs
over time you're looking from the
general trends from the start to the end
so from the start to the end for Vietnam
it goes up from Thailand it goes down
from Cambodia
it fluctuates for line graphs over time
nine times out of ten it's going to be
like that you do not need to
overcomplicate it ok so step four so
you've you
wrote paragraph 1 paraphrase the
question you've finished your overview
which is the most important part that if
you don't do not write it a clear
overview if you do not include the key
features it's impossible for you to get
a 7 or above just forget about it so if
you're struggling to get a 7 or above in
the whole test you should be focusing on
on overview so if that is your weakness
but get some feedback on that it's
really important that you write a good
overview step 4
write to details paragraphs so what
you're doing is you're going to write
your first details paragraph in your
second details paragraph not all the as
do this a step-by-step system because
you have to be flexible with task one
it's because the data is always going to
be changing so it's very difficult to
apply objective criteria to subjective
data but in general what you're going to
be doing is you're going to be breaking
up the the data in two stages look at
are there any areas that you could break
it up so that you can talk about it so
for example Thailand you could maybe
break that up from 2006 to 2009 so you
could be talking about it started at
twenty five million on 2009 it was at
seventeen and a half million and then it
dropped sharply to around twelve and a
half million so that's one stage here
and then that's the second stage and
this is a stage a different stage here
so you could talk about the data from
2010 to 2013 and then lastly this stage
say Vietnam so Vietnam the stages are
there's only really two stages goes up
here and then here so you could talk
about 2006 to 2010 and then 2010 to 2014
you're just breaking it up so that it's
easy for you to talk about so once
you've done that then you can very
importantly check do not move on to task
two or if you've done task one second do
not just put your pan down check
everything you should be checking your
grammar you should be checking your
vocabulary checking your paraphrasing
checking your overview checking your
data especially check your data make
sure
that it is accurate that's basically it
braking line graphs turn into five
simple steps I normally take questions
but it's the hottest day of the year
here and the studio lights here are and
very very hot so I'm going to go because