61
STUDY AND WRITING SKILLS
7.4
WRITING SKILLS
DESCRIBING CHARTS
7
Discuss these questions in groups.
1
Which university subjects are popular in your
country with a) men and b) women?
2
Do you think the majority of science students in your
country are men or women? What about Languages,
or Humanities?
9
a
Describing bar charts
Look at these words and
answer the questions below.
an increase fell a rise a decrease
decreased rose increased a fall
1
Which are nouns? Which are verbs?
2
Which are about going up? Which are about going
down?
3
Which words mean the same thing?
9
b
What is the most interesting information in bar
chart A? Discuss with a partner.
9
c
Complete this summary of the important information
in bar chart A. Write one word or number in each gap.
8
a
Analysing data
Look at bar chart A above. Can you
find this information in the chart?
1
the number of male and female students studying
psychology
2
the reason for the differences between the number
of men and women who chose to study different
subjects
3
the number of students (men and women) who
studied different subjects at Newbarret University in
2011 and 2014.
8
b
Look carefully at bar chart A and decide if these
statements are true or false.
1
The orange bars show the number of men who
studied three different subjects at Newbarret
University in 2011.
2
The light blue bars show the number of women who
studied three different subjects in 2014.
3
In 2011, about 27,000 men studied Languages.
4
In 2014, about 23,000 women studied Humanities.
10
Now write about bar chart B. Describe a) what it is
about and b) some of the most important information.
Discuss your ideas with a partner before you start writing.
Use the summary of bar chart A in Exercise 9c to help you.
In Sciences, there were more
1
students than
men. On the other hand, the
2
of men who
studied Humanities was higher than the number of
women.
Numbers
3
during the period 2014, both for
men and women studying Sciences. There was a
4
in the number of male students, from about 32,000 in
2011, to about
5
in 2014.
Overall, more students studied Sciences than other
subjects.
6
had the smallest number of students
enrolled.
A
0
10
20
30
40
50
Changing trends in subjects studied at Newbarret
University
Sciences
Languages
thousands
Humanities
Women 2011
Source:
US Department
of Education
Men 2011
Women 2014
Men 2014
B
0
10
20
30
40
50
Changing trends in subjects studied at Newbarret
University
thousands
Women 2011
Source:
US Department
of Education
Men 2011
Women 2014
Men 2014
Maths
Psychology
Education
