IELTS Task 1 Table Report – Sales figures of two products in two periods

In this task, I found that the information is laid out in such a way that there could be two approaches to structuring a high-level IELTS report.

This is only the approach that I took to answering and writing this IELTS question from Cambridge English IELTS and you could write a different report.

Whether that report would score a 7 is debatable. 

I am confident this approach is the best method for the type of information and the time allowed to answer the question.

For example, I decided to include the additional or differing information in the final paragraph.

First of all, I read the question and established that there were two dates or periods. Then I noted that there were two categories, bananas and coffee.

I also noted the number of categories which was five, and, by chance, I noticed that they do not run in the same order, for example.…..

Was there a reason for this? 

As the products or crops were different, I decided that I would not compare coffee with bananas but focus on coffee in 1999 and 2004 and then do the same for the second category, bananas.

It would make sense for these to be in separate paragraphs.

This would make the structure logical and the writing progressive as I would be describing similar data in each paragraph.

Good structure and progression could also improve my IELTS band score. 

I made a mental note that all the dates were in the past, and there was no connection or reference to the present time.

This means the grammar would likely be straightforward and be limited to the Past Simple by only to referring to the two dates.

No need for Perfect or Past Perfect tenses today!

Then I spent some time looking at the figures and decided that while there might appear to be some similarities most of the figures are ranked.

Ranking the figures means that I could just focus on the large numbers, the medium sized numbers and the smallest. 

I also decided that I would limit the language to describing increases and decreases (because the figures relate to amounts).

Again, I decided that most of the figures should simply be reported, from the highest to the lowest.

After describing the figures in decending order, I would then decribe the figures that are different to the others, namely Swedish and Danish banana figures.

I did not spend too much time writing the introduction but I did point out that the figures were ranked.

My biggest concern was to make sure that the introduction was clear and to the point.

I reported in my overview that there were general increases (sales increases) but there were two exceptions to this, Sweden and Denmark.

Next, I described that data as I saw it and by rank and I did this for both paragraphs. 

I made sure that I reported all of the figures in both years and for both categories.

Only in the last paragraph did I say that there was a decrease in the sales of two categories.

In order to meet the word count requirements of the task, each body paragraph had a small introductory sentence at the beginning.

Reporting just the figures would not show progression and it would be obvious the writing would be below the 150 words.

The biggest challenge I faced was trying to avoid the phrase ‘millions of euros‘.

If you repeat a phrase or word too often, or use a phrase from the question a number of times, there is risk of repetition or it ‘standing out negatively’. 

I had to accept that measurements and the currency were important so I would need to craft my words to avoid any issues, although there may be some.

I did this by simply reporting ‘the numbers’, or mentioning figures as ‘euros‘, once it was established that the figures were all in ‘millions of euros‘, for example, ‘from 0.8 to 1 million Euros in Sweden‘, ‘1.5 to 20 million Euros‘, ‘from 1 to 5.5 million‘.

🙂

Two Tables in a TASK 1 Question

The tables below give information about sales of Fairtrade-labelled coffee and bananas in 1999 and 2004 in five European countries.   

 

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features and making comparisons where relevant 

My IELTS report writing sample ‘in my own words’. 

The two tables contain the sales data from Fairtrade coffee and bananas in 1999 and 2004 in relation to five European nations and additionally ranks the highest figures recorded in 2004.  

It is clear that overall sales of coffee and bananas have increased across the five countries except for Sweden and Denmark where the sales of bananas decreased.  

By looking at Fairtrade coffee sales we can see that there were small increases in sales volume in Sweden Belgium and Denmark over the period. Sales increased from 0.8 to 1 million Euros in Sweden, 1 to 1.7 Euros in Belgium and there was a small increase from 1.8 to 2 Euros in Denmark. There was a larger increase in Switzerland where sales doubled from 3 to 6 Euros, however it was the UK that saw the most dramatic rise, increasing from just 1.5 to 20 million Euros.  

When looking at the sales of Fairtrade bananas, we can also see two notable increases. In this case, it is Switzerland that records the largest increases from 15 to 47 million while the UK recorded the second largest increase from 1 to 5.5 million. Belgium also saw a similar increase to the UK where its sales rose from 1 to 4 million. Finally, two countries saw a decrease in banana sales. Sales in Sweden dropped from 1.8 to 1 million and there was a larger decrease in Denmark where sales went from 2 to 0.9 million Euros.  

Word Count 243  

Adapted from Cambridge English IELTS 10, 2015  

I’m Jonathan, an online-IELTS preparation specialist.