What the flying crap is the point of describing a graph? Hmm? As a backup plan in case you spill tea on it?
Inauthentic utterly pointless waste of time for all involved.
You think everyone in the world is as well travelled and erudite as you?
Lots and lots of people don’t even have TVs, never mind a local zoo to visit, for your information.
Anyways, how hard can it be?
Just copy Wikipedia, like:
Easy peasy
Lemon squeezie
Win a date with Patrick Sweezy
You saying I’ve been around and I talk a lot?
A graph is the best way to transmit/represent that kind of data. It would make sense if you read a description and drew a graph…
You saying I’ve been around and I talk a lot?
A graph is the best way to transmit/represent that kind of data.[/quote]
I doubt it.
They can’t even talk.
I’m the kind of woman who likes to call a graph a spade.
Well, that’s good, I think.
I know Stray Dog would encourage you to spay or neuter your graph.
Personally them purple tongues gross me out.
I had to delete this. I had to. It was crap. Really really crap. I don’t know what I was thinking. Probably just joy to see the chief back.
It’s not usual to simply present someone with a graph and ask them to interpret it. You usually talk about your findings and show people a graph which makes it easy to understand what you’re saying. Example, relevant to IELTS for other reasons: lextutor.ca/research/ - graph plus explanation. (Plus conclusions, which are not part of the test.)
I assume that the task is practise for the day when the student has to do some research and present their findings. We assume they can draw the graph, that’s not an English-language function anyway, and were testing their ability to express information in writing.
For testing purposes, we give them a simple graph and ask them to explain it, to see if they can explain it.
In academic writing, people describe figures and tables all the time.
And anyway, what else are you going to ask them to do? It’s a test, there has to be some task to do. Got a better one?
It’s all about describing something. Simple machines or processes also come up regularly, and many students ask why they need to be able to explain how a lawnmower works. The point is that they have to be able to explain something clearly and logically. The graph, or egg-peeling machine, is incidental to the task of producing decent English.
As a writing exercise, I commonly ask my writing class students to describe weird shit like screws, staplers etc… It is quite challenging.
if someone looks at a graph, and then interprets it incorrectly, what is the point of the graph? therefore, students need to be taught these skills, which can eventually lead to some kind of exam or whatnot.
What’s the point of a graph ?
Graphs help to make mathamatical data easier to interpret and understand, especially for people who are not good at maths or do not have the time to interpret the mathmatical data.
IELTS (academic) module is really aimed at those students who are going to study a degree in finance economics or science etc. Interpreting basic statistical data is vital for most univesity degrees these days. There is the non-academic version of the IELTS test that I believe does not do this.
I think the IELTS tests are excellent, far better than GEPT. However if you were going to do, say an art degree then interpreting a graph is unfair and kind of meaningless. Perhaps interpreting or describing a work of art would be better.
Anyway I like it, but then again i do have a science degree lol
Yeah this is a great way to make them talk and think. Much better than learning by memor all the time. I agree.