The tables below give information about sales of Fairtrade*-labelled coffee and bananas in

IELTS Writing Task 1: two different charts
 
I'm in the process of making a video lesson about the question below. It should be ready today or 
tomorrow. 
The bar chart below shows the numbers of men and women attending various evening courses 
at an adult education centre in the year 2009. The pie chart gives information about the ages 
of these course participants. 
Task: 
Last week I recommended that you aim to write 
9 sentences
 for your task 1 report. Think about 
the 9-sentence structure for the question above. 
IELTS Writing Task 1: the 'selecting' skill
 
One of the key skills when describing a graph, chart or table is selecting. 
In the table below, for example, which 2 main points would you select for your summary? And 
how many of the 20 numbers would you manage to include in your 'details' paragraphs? 
Note: I'm making a video lesson about the table above. It will be ready tomorrow. 

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IELTS Writing Task 1: pie chart video
 
I've just published my latest video lesson at the bottom of 
this page
. In the lesson, I explain my 
approach to describing pie charts, and I work through this question: 
The charts below show household spending patterns in two countries between 1980 and 2008. 
For this question, a key decision to make is how to divide the information into two 'details' 
paragraphs. You have three choices: 
1. Write one paragraph about each year 
2. Write one paragraph about each country 
3. Group the information according to category (e.g. food and drink with utility bills in 
paragraph 3, and the other categories in paragraph 4) 
Which way would you do it? 
The chart below shows global sales of the top five mobile phone brands between 2009 and 
2013. 
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A few things to consider if you try writing a report for this question: 
1. What alternative words could you use instead of global sales, mobile phones, and 
brands? 
2. What do you think is the most noticeable feature on the chart? 
3. How would you group the information into two 'details' paragraphs? 
You can see how I deal with these issues in the video lesson, or you could share your own ideas 
in the 'comments' area below. 

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