Describing various types of graphs ■■ This curve / solid line / shaded area illustrates … ■■ This coloured segment shows/describes … ■■ According to the table, the last decade was marked by … Describing an upward trend ■■ a significant increase ■■ a considerable growth ■■ it increased dramatically ■■ it rose sharply ■■ it climbed/surged/soared to … Describing a downward trend ■■ a sharp fall ■■ a significant drop ■■ it declined sharply ■■ it hit the lowest point in … ■■ it fell/decreased to … Describing a period without major changes ■■ it levelled out at … ■■ it remained stable/steady at … ■■ it stayed constant at … Other phrases and collocations ■■ considerable variation ■■ it varied considerably ■■ a slight fluctuation ■■ it plateaued at … percent in July ■■ it showed some fluctuation You can call a small change slight, moderate, minor, minimal, insignificant or a slow increase or decrease. If it is a large or fast change, you can describe it as sharp, major, considerable, dramatic, substantial, steep, or a significant or rapid increase or decrease. Change can occur slowly or quickly. Use adjectives and adverbs like rapid(ly), swift(ly), sudden(ly), gradual(ly) and others to describe the speed of change. To describe information that is not exact, use words like approximately, roughly, about, around, just under, or just over. Describing a graph on global inequality ■■ Using an English search engine interface (1 5.6), find an interesting graph on global inequality. For example, you could enter the search term “global inequality” or “World Inequality Report” (without quotation marks) and then click on “Images”. ■■ Describe your graph, using the methods and as many of the phrases listed above as possible. ■■ For additional research, search for “World Social Report executive summary” or “World Inequality Report executive summary” (all results, not only images) and read the executive summaries of these two reports. They are extremely interesting. To do [A] [B] [E] [H] 8.4 PLEASE NOTE It’s important to know how to say numbers in English. Test yourself. Cover up the right-hand column and check if you can say all of these. 100 one hundred; a hundred 1,500 one thousand five hundred (In rather informal contexts, you can also say “fifteen hundred”, especially if the number is written without a comma.) 350,421 three hundred (and) fifty thousand, four hundred (and) twenty-one 211,050,780 two hundred (and) eleven million, fifty thousand, seven hundred (and) eighty The “and” after “hundred” is required in Britain. It is occasionally used elsewhere, too. $2,000,000,000 (or: $2 billion) two billion dollars 10.6 ten point six In English, the comma is used to separate large numbers into groups of three digits in order to improve readability (e.g. 2,000,000,000). The point, on the other hand, is used in decimal numerals as a so-called decimal separator (e.g. 10.6). In German, it is exactly the other way around! 8.735 eight point seven three five 0.009 zero point oh oh nine –5° C five degrees below zero Celsius 1/ 2 one-half; a half 2/ 3 two-thirds 7/ 8 seven-eighths km/h kilometres per hour 76 Key aspects Strategies Sample task 8 Global inequality Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv
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