This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1580.
What should you include in your Task 1 overall trend?
Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner-trained IELTS whiz Aubrey Carter and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.
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Are you using numbers in your Writing Task 1 overall trend?
Should you be?
The key is to know where the numbers go in the essay.
Learn more today.
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Hello, Aubrey.
How's it going today?
How you doing?
I am great.
Lindsay, how often do you analyze charts and graphs?
To me, not really.
Maybe if there's like a chart in a magazine or a newspaper, I will, but not much.
Maybe analytics on the podcast, right?
Look at graphs there sometimes, but yeah, not much.
And we never have to write essays about them, right?
Oh, never, never.
So clearly on IELTS, we're doing things that are pretty well outside of our wheelhouse.
Or just not typical for academic task.
One is so tricky because this is not something you have to do usually.
Right.
Yeah.
We're actually asking a question today about the task one overall trend, which is definitely probably the most tricky part of the academic task one essay.
It really seems like it.
And today's question is inspired by a student in our Three Keys IELTS course.
Guys, don't forget, we have an entire course to walk you, step by step, through a 30 or a 60 day study plan exactly what to do each day to be ready.
So if you need more detail, podcast is your starting point, but it's not going to take you into the exam, right?
Yes.
And this is such a bonus in the course that you're part of our community.
You can ask questions there.
We answer so you know you can trust the answers you get instead of just posting them to a forum.
And then who knows who will answer?
Who knows who will answer?
Good.
So to get into the course guys go to allersenglishcom slash K E Y S.
But we're going to start with asking and reading the question from our student.
Yeah.
So they were asking about IELTS task one academic overall trend.
They said when writing a good overall trend, should I include totals?
If a candidate fails to put total numbers in it, can they only get a four out of five?
Normally there's common advice to only put main patterns in the overview, not details or specific data.
So then this student shared a task one question with a chart.
The question was.
The pie charts below show units of electricity production by fuel sources in Australia and France in 1980 and 2000.
Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.
And then the student shared a possible overall trend.
Do you want to read that, Lindsay?
Yeah.
So the student asked us, should this be the overview, the overall trend?
Overall, total production increased significantly in both countries, by 70 to 170 units in Australia, while it doubled to 180 units in France.
As for the sources of energy, the use of coal grew the most in Australia, while nuclear power generation saw a dramatic increase in France.
All right, so this is very difficult.
These charts and graphs that this student showed are among the more difficult that you might get, where it's just not that straightforward.
It's not like two clear comparisons.
We have two countries, Several dates, right?
Lots of different things.
There's a lot going on here.
So I can definitely understand the confusion about what should go in the overall trend.
Yeah.
So let's find out.
I mean, what do we think, Aubrey?
Where do we go from here?
Yeah.
So first of all, stay to the end of the episode.
We are going to share a band nine overall trend for this task one essay.
Because yes, the overall train is the main pattern.
It should not include any details or specific data.
So all of the numbers you heard there, right by 70 to 170 units, doubled to 180 units, All of that should be in the body paragraphs.
None of that should go in your overall trend.
Yeah, it did feel heavy.
It felt like a lot, like too much for an overall trend.
And if you think about the definition of an overall trend, having specific numbers makes it no longer an overall trend, that overall idea of what we're seeing.
The second you share numbers, Specific numbers, specific details.
It's no longer overall what we're seeing in the essay.
That's a really important point, Aubrey.
I love that.
Yeah.
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Okay, so then what should then go in the overall trend?
And we know we shouldn't include specific details, numbers, percentages.
And what do we actually say?
Yeah, so it depends on the essay, right?
So we're going to talk about the two main types of essays.
There are also process essays.
We'll talk about that, processes and diagrams.
We'll do that on an upcoming episode.
Be sure to hit follow.
But we're talking about static essays and change over time.
So first of all, what is a static essay, Lindsay?
So a static essay is an essay that shows a snapshot in time, right?
So for these, we're going to share what is the highest and the lowest, the highs and the lows.
Right.
So, for example, if a chart shows the amount of textbooks sold at different universities in 2023, your overall trend will include the university that sold the most and the one that sold the least, without any specific numbers, no other information.
You're just sharing highest and lowest.
When it's a static essay.
That's not showing how information changed over time.
So you're kind of looking at the overall scope of everything, right?
Right, exactly.
You don't include actual amounts of books sold or any specific information.
Just in order to show overall what we're seeing here, share the highest and the lowest.
Nice.
But what about change over time essays?
This is a different kind of essay.
And in our course we go through how to recognize the difference between a change over time and a static essay.
Yes.
So these will show how information changed over time.
So, for example, maybe you have graphs that show theater attendants at different theaters from like 1990 to 2020 in one city.
And it's showing how the information, how the attendance changed over time.
Then in that case, your overall trend will include the biggest increase in attendance and the biggest decrease in attendance.
And that's how you show overall what we see in those graphs.
Yeah.
OK, perfect.
So now we're going to do the correct overall trend, right, that our student that we would suggest.
Exactly.
So for this task, one essay that our student showed we.
It was from Cambridge seven, test four and it was showing units of electricity in Australia and France.
And it was showing the total production in 1980 and in 2000.
So sometimes students will get a little tripped up because well, let's see, is this static or change over time?
It does show 1980 and 2000.
Could go either way.
We recommend doing this as a static essay because it doesn't show enough of how information changed over time.
It's really two snapshots in time.
So, Lindsay, share with us what would be a band nine overall trend for this essay?
All right.
Here it is.
Production of coal increased the most in Australia, while the use of nuclear power skyrocketed in France.
In both countries, natural gas dipped significantly.
Yeah, it feels like a true summary of what we're looking at.
Exactly.
Right.
So this is interesting because looking at these numbers, this makes the most sense to break it down this way to show production of coal increased the most in Australia and then nuclear power really skyrocketed.
And then for both of these areas for Australia and France increased. natural gas dove.
So you're sharing the biggest increases and decreases in this way in order to show overall what happened in these charts.
I love it.
So much more simple in a way, right?
Just I think that part of the takeaway today is don't get too mired down in details in the overall trend.
Because that's not what a trend is, right?
It's not details.
It's overall ideas.
Exactly.
That's the biggest tech takeaway that you don't want any specific numbers in your overall trend, or it's no longer really just kind of showing overall what we see in this essay.
So avoid sharing specific numbers.
But to have this be very systematic like this, to know, depending on what type of graphs I'm seeing, I'm either going to share biggest highest, lowest or biggest increase, biggest decrease really simplifies what you do here for the overall trend.
Yes, and we love when we can simplify things on IELTS, because we know IELTS might feel a little complicated right now, but if we can simplify it we can head towards the right score.
Exactly.
Yes.
But there's really a lot that goes into overall trend process or diagram.
Essays work a little differently as well.
So, like you were saying Lindsay, before one episode on IELTS energy, we've covered overall trend before, but there's a lot to it, right?
There's a reason there's a whole module about academic task one.
So really the best idea would be to get into a course allearsenglishcom slash keys K-E-Y-S to get into Three Keys IELTS.
You got it.
And guys, check out 1579, Stuck on IELTS Speaking, Two Ways to Buy Time.
That was just yesterday's episode or the last episode.
And that'll give you a lot of good hints and tips for the speaking tests.
Absolutely.
Scroll up if you missed that one.
We use some awesome strategies that will help you buy time.
All right.
Sounds good.
Aubrey, you have a good day.
I'll talk to you soon.
Take care.
See you next time.
All right.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy.
Hit subscribe now, and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglishcom.
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