Demonstration- Answering Task 1 From Start to Finish

Welcome back everybody.

We’re now moving into the final section of this course Section 7 which is the conclusion.

And in this section of the course we are really wrapping up everything that we’ve looked at so far as well as offering a few more tips techniques and strategies which should help you to feel just a little bit more confident about the exam and hopefully you’ll walk away from this course feeling like you have a much better understanding of what is required for a band 7 response and also feeling like you have the skills to achieve it.

Now in this first lecture in this section it’s going to be a little bit longer than usual and that’s because we’re going to spend the entire video answering a task one question and of course because you have 20 minutes to answer a question in task one that’s roughly how long this video is going to take.

The reason that we’re doing this is so that I can show you how we are going to use the skills that we’ve looked at in this course to apply them to an actual response.

So this is going to be the question that we look at today.

OK so the first thing we need to do is go through the questions together and then we’ll get started on writing the response.

So the question the graph below shows how much money was spent on tourist infrastructure in four different European countries from 1980 to 1992 summarize the information by selecting reporting the main features and make comparisons where relevant.

We have a look at the graph itself we can see that it is a graph with a trend.

You can see a generation on the x axis and on the y axes you can see the government spending on tourist infrastructure and the unit of measurement is millions of euros.

We have four countries as I mentioned the question they are the UK France Spain and Germany.

OK.

So having absorbed all the information we can now think about writing a plan.

So let’s think about the plan.

They should only take a couple of minutes.

Let’s bring up a plan.

So you remember from the lecture on planning when we plan we don’t want to plan the introduction so all we want to do is plan the overview which is called Ovi as well as detail paragraph 1.

Or you can just call this paragraph three and paragraph four.

So remember we’re trying to keep things very limited in this plan.

Trying to just go for letters numbers symbols sometimes we have to write whole words but we’ll try and keep it fairly limited.

And we’re looking in the overview to identify the main trends.

Now all that means if you remember rightly from the identifying main trends lecture is that you’re following the lines on the chart so we can follow the line of the U.K.

and what we can see is that it goes up so we’ll write that down first U.K goes up what else goes up.

We can also see that France goes up.

So we can say U.K and we can write F and we have plus plus.

So what we have for Spain is we can see that it goes down.

So I will say s or minus minus to mean that it goes down.

And for Germany it seems to go up.

But then it slips a bit at the end so we might write Germany plus plus slash minus.

I mean it mostly goes up but it does go down a little bit at the end.

But it doesn’t decrease beyond its initial point.

So that will be just our view.

We will be writing about this information when we come there but now we can see the main trends and that will allow us to save time later on.

And paragraph 3 we want to pick out a feature we want to pick out some sort of theme for each of these two paragraphs.

I would pick out similar parts I think.

So the U.K and France they both go up in their spending and in fact they end up converging on the same point.

Therefore I think it’s best to talk about the U.K and France in paragraph 3 and therefore to talk about Spain and Germany.

In Paragraph 4 you can see also that Spain and Germany converge on a single point in 1990 as well that would be something to mention.

There’s a plan that should only take a couple of minutes.

It would have taken me less time if I was just writing on my own.

But again notice it looks all strange like algebra almost but it’s actually quite simple to follow.

Once you know what we’re doing.

So let’s leave that on the side here.

We will now get thinking about the introduction.

We haven’t planned the introduction because we shouldn’t need to we should be able to rely on a formula.

And if you remember the formula from the introduction lecture should look a little bit like this.

The line growth we can show to the examiner we know what the different graphs.

It’s a line graph.

We don’t use the word shows because we shall we have the vocabulary to vary.

So the line graph demonstrates.

Now remember how much money is one option when we see how much we can use the amount of it’s uncountable.

So the amount of money.

I remember when we used to structure we need to use a relative pronoun so which was spent on tourist infrastructure.

Don’t worry too much about the repetition here.

There’s so much paraphrasing going on that it doesn’t really matter.

We’ll paraphrase that later.

So on tourist infrastructure.

We have four different European countries now if you remember from the lecture I’m paraphrasing we can swap those words around.

European countries.

So in four different countries in Europe and we also have a duration at the end which we can paraphrase as well.

So from 1980 to 1992 I’m going to choose to paraphrase it like this over a how many years twelve 12 year period instead of from and to we can choose between and and so notice that we’re just using templates here to give us a bit of speed and accuracy.

We’re not relying too much on memorization as that can be a problem but we’re just using them to help us a bit.

So those are introduction single sentence contains all the main information that we need.

We can now move on to the overview.

Now if you remember from the lecture on overview the overview should contain general information.

When we look at a graph with the trend the overview should contain the main trends and that’s what we’ve got in the plan there.

But also remember that we want to use specific language in the overview for example how to begin an overview.

While we might use the expression overall followed by it can be seen.

Now again thinking back to that lecture on overviews we also want to use the overview to introduce a complex sentence straightaway that also allows us to allows us to get in comparisons as well as be concise with our language.

So we’ll go straight for a subordinating conjunction here to create the complex sentence was like although whereas a while let’s go with.

Whereas So whereas now let’s have a look at the plan we have the U.K and France increasing their spending.

So whereas the U.K noticed that although it doesn’t say the U.K up here we always should include the before U.K unless you’re using UK like an adjective.

But if you’re using as a noun make sure you include the article whereas the U.K and France increased their spending on tourism over the period.

OK.

That’s our dependent clause.

And now we have a comma and we move on to the independent clause looking at Spain and what happens to Spain.

So Spain witnessed a fall in spending or.

OK we’ve got the word spending and spending.

So let’s see if we can think of another word money related Let’s go for investment witnessed a fall in investment.

Don’t worry about the word tourism again it’s just here so we know what we’re talking about when it’s to fall in investment.

Up until nineteen ninety cause that’s what happens it just falls until 1990 and then returns before recovery.

OK.

It’s OK to write dates here.

We are not backing up the dates with any specific figures.

That’s what the detail power grabs for.

So make sure you’re right.

Generally it’s OK to write dates but just make sure to avoid any specific figures like 60 million or 40 million X Ach.

Right. So now we need to talk about Germany.

You don’t have to.

By the way as long as you’ve introduced one sentence at least for your overview.

So ok but if you want to shoot for a higher score do try to include a bit more information.

So let’s see if we can include Germany too in Germany.

Meanwhile remember we’re using Meanwhile as a cohesive device.

If you think back to the electron cohesive devices and the lecture on the model and in section 2 This can be quite useful here.

So in Germany meanwhile the final issue of course for tourism.

OK so we’ve used increase what’s in other words an increase we could say Rose.

So financial support for tourism rose before slipping after 1990.

OK.

So you’ve got the words 1992 why you’ve got the words before twice you’ve got a similar structure because I’m worried too much about these things as you’re going through to worry less about variety worry more about accuracy in covering the main features contrasting the data.

Those those are higher on your list of priorities than creating range if you’re worried about range and simply underline a similar expression if you have time at the end come back to it later and see if you can change it then but do not worry too much about variety.

When you are actually writing your response worry about accuracy worry about reporting the main features and worry about making comparisons.

Okay so let’s have a look at the word count here.

We have seventy one words that’s pretty nice That’s less than half of the word count which is great because paragraphs 3 and 4 tend to be a little bit longer paragraphs 3 and 4 being the detail paragraphs.

And we want to make clear to the reader that we’re focusing on the details straightaway in paragraph 3.

We also want to make it clear to the reader what the content of the paragraph will be.

And in this case it’s looking at the details for the U.K and France.

So let’s make that clear straight away by saying focusing on U.K and France comma case very clear to the reader that we’re talking about the details of two of the categories.

Now we can use the case of devices Im referencing lecture here to think about how we can avoid repeating UK and France as we go through this paragraph.

And what I’m thinking here is that we can use the former and the latter as well as a complex sentence.

OK.

So although the former So the former is the first one said the U.K focusing on the U.K and France although the former began remember from the selecting data lecture that looking at the beginning points it’s very important for the data.

So we’re going to look at the start points here.

Although the former began the period by spending how much.

Fifty eight million roughly.

So about maybe fifty eight million euros on tourism because we’ve got that complex sentence here now we need to come up and we’re going to begin the independent clause.

So 58 million euros on tourism the latter to me say the latter we mean the second parts of France.

So the letter started now.

Have a look at the figure for France at the beginning is the lowest point.

It’s 20.

And we have 20 here whereas the U.K.

spent about about 60 I’m saying 58 be about 60.

What is the relation between those two numbers.

Sixty and twenty.

Hopefully you can notice some sort of relation there.

And this allows us to write about numbers in a variety of different ways.

So instead of writing 20 we can write one third of that figure.

So one third of 60s 20 the latter started out just one third of and then we can use referencing as well paraphrasing this figure.

OK.

Notice we don’t need to say 1980.

We don’t need to say that because we’ve written began and we’ve written Rebrov written started and up here in introduction we’ve said it’s between 1980 and 1992 so don’t repeat vocabulary when it’s unnecessary because such a limited amount of time to you to write this response.

They should really focus on getting the data out in a concise fashion.

OK so the latter started it just want to.

So all we’ve done here is we’ve put down two pieces of data.

The beginning point for the U.K and France.

Now if you remember again from that selecting data lecture the important points to focus on the main features are the beginning points the endpoints the same points.

So when they kind of converge and any kind of peaks highs lows etc.

that kind of thing and any turning points.

Now there are no turning points among the U.K and France they always increase.

But what’s interesting is that they converge at the final point.

And it’s also the highest point as well.

What’s also interesting here is that France increases at a faster rate than the UK because they end up converging despite the massive difference between them at the beginning. Now let’s focus on that so we can use.

However there’s a difference here.

There’s a difference of a big gap between them.

So we going to focus on the Gap becoming much smaller and essentially converging on the same point.

So However there’s one contrast.

Also another contrasts despite tourism investment.

The figure in 1992 was the same for each at 80 million euros so what you’ve got here is like a double contrast you’ve got the contrast between the two sentences.

The fact that there’s a big gap in the first sentence and then no gap in the second sentence.

But you’ve also got the contrast between the two clauses here.

The fact that both countries increase their spending and yet they arrive at the same point in 1992.

So there’s like a double contrast here.

Now we could end the paragraph here and that would be absolutely fine.

We could end the paragraph here if you wanted to push for a slightly higher school.

And bear in mind that there is a risk here to your time limit you could think about commenting on the data a little bit more.

Remember we want to if we can talk about the highs and lows of the data.

Notice that in 1992 there is a peak peak among all the countries all the data really for both the UK and France.

And so what we can do is we can comment on this data using a relative clause.

And we looked at these in the Gramma’s section remember with a non defining relative clause where we’re choosing to have more information we won’t come up and which we got Khama which we’re going to talk about the fact that it’s the highest point.

So which was the most money spent in a single year by any nation during the period.

So I think that a little bit more.

This does present a risk of going a bit too far over the word count.

So let’s just check how we’re doing here.

We’ve got 138 already.

We really only need to write 12 more words so we know that we’re going to go quite far over.

So I don’t feel like you have to include this final line here. I think it’s much more important really to focus on finishing the response in time.

So let’s finally look at paragraph 4 and we’re moving from the U.K and France to Spain and Germany. So let’s think about that. Now notice that we’ve chosen to write about the countries in these ways because they follow different patterns.

The U.K and France follow similar patterns but Spain and Germany follow quite different patterns to that contrast because there’s a contrast. Let’s use the word contrast to open the paragraph in contrast. This again creates this sense of cohesion by using cohesive devices.

So in contrast now let’s focus on each country individually this time rather than putting them in the same sentence. And remember again how we can paraphrase countries instead of Spain we might say the Spanish.

So in contrast the Spanish decreased their spending on touristic developments let’s say or touristic developments up until when up until 1990 from 1980 to 1990.

How could we say that in another way. Well we could we could use the word decade or we could look at the specific decade which is the 1980s. So let’s use that.

So the Spanish decreased their spending on touristic developments in the 1980s or perhaps even better over more sense of direction over the 1980s with investment slumping as a more advanced word.

There again remember to go back to that lecture on graphs with the trend to have a look at vocabulary which talks about trends about things going up and things going down. It’s good to have a variety of words that you can use here. Slumping is a useful one.

So with investment slumping from 60 million euros to roughly 48 million. Remember those three days about approximately around let’s go with what do we use up here.

We said about so let’s go around to around 48 million. Now to end that sentence and we’re going to try to work out. We’re already over by 12 words.

So we should now start thinking about how we can wrap this up but still quite a lot to get through. We still need to come to the end point of Spain as that’s quite crucial because it doesn’t continue to decrease as well as talk about Germany.

So we can finish with some simple sentences rather than complex sentences trying to acknowledge the limited time that we might have left while also trying to include as much data as possible. So a nice simple sentence here this some then jumped back.

So I went back to the original figer jump a big increase jumped back to 60 million in 1992. OK a simple sentence there. Now let’s have a look at Germany finished this up.

German governments another way of saying talking about countries we know we’re looking at government big government spending.

So German government and because you can see here that the two lines fall in very different patterns like almost perfect reverses of each other falling then rising in Germany increasing them falling.

Let’s use a very similar expression to in contrast converse. The German government comr converse the common German government covertly raised spending in the 80s. We didn’t say 1980s again we can keep a bit shorter.

So re spending in the 80s from roughly 30 million 30 million euros to forty eight million of them will use a word to talk about the next part of a sequence.

Again you can get this Foka vocabulary from the lecture on vocabulary processes but it’s actually very useful when talking about grass with the trend too.

So after which after which the figure again trying to represent units of measurements in another way to which the figure dropped can just another word trying to avoid using the same verbs dropped to 40 million if we check the word count here you’ll see that we are a fair bit over.

But we’ve managed to keep it under 200 and that is key. It would be ideal if you could keep it under 1 8 1 7 5. Here we’ve got 2 1 9 5.

That’s partly because we chose to include information which is not entirely necessary but shows that we want to give as much information as possible about the graph and comment on the data in a variety of different ways for example by using this relative clause I’ve highlighted here.

Now I want to do one more thing before we wrap this lecture up and that is to show you something interesting now a lot of people tell me that they struggle with particular types of charts and graphs and things like that while I tell them is that to be honest almost any kind of graph or chart can be represented in a different way.

A line graph is just a bar chart in a different format. You can see this here as you can see it’s very easily changed into a bar chart. It’s exactly the same it’s just a different way of presenting the data.

So I try not to be too afraid of the different types of charts that you might receive or graphs. Usually they’re just different ways of presenting the same data and you just want to present the data with words again words just another way of presenting data.

So hopefully that demonstration was helpful and you can see how we can apply the skills we’ve learned in this course to actually writing the response itself. If you have any questions as always do get in touch.

I may try creating another one of these videos in the future for a different question type like a comparative graph a process and a map but that will come a little bit later on I think.

But yes I hope you found this helpful and I will see you in the next election.