2014 Expert English Page 1

Script Task 1 3-step plan (Graphs) - PRACTICE

Note: The script may have some differences with the audio. Any differences will be infrequent and minor.

Instructor:

Did you follow the 3-step plan to do the practice question?

What, you didnt? Then dont watch this video!

You need to do it yourself first and then you can compare what you did with what I show

you.

Come on! Its 5 minutes and very important for your learning.

You did? OK, good! Now watch me do it. I will probably do it better than you Ive been

doing this a long time. But you can judge if you are on the way to doing it well yourself.

The goals for this video are:

- Get practice in implementing the 3-step plan - SNO

- Increase your understanding of how to prepare Task 1

Slide 1

Here is the task that you practised with. I will show you how I applied the 3-

step plan to this task. Now you will have done some things differently to me,

but that doesnt mean you are wrong. Every person doing the test will do it a bit

differently, but there are many ways to be right. Just make sure that what you do

fits the descriptors that we have looked at.

Slide 2

OK, 3-step plan.

Uhhh what is it again?

Oh yeah, SNO and that stands for Study, notes, overview

Slide 3

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So, the first one is study. Study the information carefully.

Slide 4

First, we read the question and underline the main points:

The charts below show unemployment rates and weekly earnings for workers

with different levels of education in the United States in 2012. Summarise the

information by selecting and reporting the main features and make comparisons

where relevant.

Looking at the graphs we can see one is about unemployment rates in 2012. We

note that the numbers are in percent. The other chart is about weekly earnings in

2012, in dollars. We see that the six different educational levels are the same

and in the same order in both graphs. We should also notice that the

unemployment rate goes DOWN as the education level rises, while the weekly

salary goes UP with educational level.

Slide 5

Lets move on to the second step in the 3-step plan, which is:

Number 2: Write notes on the main features

Slide 6

So, looking at the first graph, we can see that:

unemployment rate goes DOWN as the education level rises

Unemployment rate is highest no high school diploma 12.5%

finish h.s./go to college similar (around 8%) but finish college: only 4.5%

unemployed

Small decreases in rate for higher degrees

In the second chart, the features which stand out are:

weekly salary goes UP with educational level

doctoral gives 4 times salary as h.s. unfinished

University education much more salary than h.s. - $400 more bachelor,

extra $300 Masters, extra $300 doctorate.

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Even graduating h.s. is 50% better than not finish h.s.

Slide 7

Now we will move on to the third step in the 3-step plan, which is:

Number 3: Decide on the overview.

Slide 8

Remember that the overview is a summary of the key trends! What do the

graphs show, in general, in one or two sentences?

The first graph shows a clear downward trend in the unemployment rate as

people become more educated. The second chart shows a clear trend of higher

weekly salary with more education.

So the overview could be something like this:

As education level increases, there is a clear trend to lower unemployment and

higher earnings.

Slide 9

So again, we have covered the question paper with a lot of writing and

markings, but no problem there and you should have a plan now for a great

Task 1 answer. Dont worry if you did your 3-step plan differently to me...

remember that the important thing is to make sure that you do what the

descriptors tell you.

Slide 10

Lets refresh your memory about those descriptors remember that this is

IELTS telling YOU how to get a seven!

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Instructor:

I hope that was helpful. Your answer could be a bit different from mine and still be fine.

Next we will learn about a different kind of Task 1 question: not graphs, but diagrams.