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Describing charts
Instructions
Do the preparation task first. Then read the text and tips and do the exercises.
Reading text
The first chart illustrates the percentage of the population who owned a smartphone from 2011 to 2016, and the second breaks the percentages down by age for 2011 and 2016.
Overall, smartphone ownership increased during the six-year period. In general, the younger people were, the more likely they were to own a smartphone. However, the most significant increases in smartphone ownership between 2011 and 2016 came from people aged 45 to 54, from 46% to 84%; from those in the 55 to 64 category, from 9% to 59%; and from those aged 65 to 74, from 5% to 50%.
The percentage of people who owned a smartphone rose steadily, starting at around 35% in 2011 and reaching about 77% by 2016. People aged 16 to 24 represented the greatest percentage of smartphone ownership in both 2011 and 2016. 75% of people aged 25 to 34 and 72% of those aged 35 to 44 owned a smartphone in 2011, rising to 88% and 86% respectively by 2016.
Although almost nobody in the 75+ age category owned a smartphone in 2011, 15% of this group owned smartphones in 2016.
Please note: This page was designed for writing practice only. Information and statistics in the charts may not be accurate.
Tips
- If you are doing an exam task, read the instructions and make sure you write according to the word and time limits.
- Start by saying what the charts show. In an exam, change the words in the question to write the first sentence of your answer, e.g. These charts show = These charts illustrate.
- The second paragraph should provide an overview of the key features of the information.
- The other paragraphs should describe the patterns or trends in more detail. However, only select the most important ones to write about, and don't write about your own ideas.
- Use linking words and a range of vocabulary to describe what you see in the charts. (You can write % or per cent, but be consistent.)
- Be careful to use the correct tenses to describe the time periods shown.
Discussion
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This is an absolutely example of a misleading chart since the total number of perentage each age range over 100%. Being said that, the inaccurate of the data due to writing pratice purpose is allowed as per the note, chart should be chosen logically.
Hello Thu_tran2911,
I assume you're referring to the two bar charts rather than the line chart. I don't agree that these are misleading. The bars do not show a percentage of the total population but rather what percentage of each age group owns smartphones. In other words, in 2011 over 80% of people aged 16-24 owned smartphones and just under 80% of people aged 25-34. There is no reason to add these together; they describe different groups, not percentages of the whole population.
In a similar way, I could say that 60% of women have brown eyes in a certain country while 70% of men have brown eyes. That does not mean that we are describing 130% as each statistic describes the percentage within a group and not within the country as a whole.
Peter
The LearnEnglish Team
actually, I have never written about charts at work or for my studies but I will do it in the future.
Yes, I'm a economics students so I frequently used charts and tables to illustrate trends. I have many charts present in front of my teacher.