Arsenio’s ESL Podcast: Special – IELTS – Comparing Information

Yes! We’re getting into the bulk of it now.  It’s time to learn how to make comparisons.

When comparing information, especially on your Writing Task 1, it’s very important that you use a range of structures to make comparisons.  When you compare bar graphs, you can often fall below the 150 word mark because you’re lacking comparisons — kind of like when you do a map.  Here are some examples.

• More males than females chose basketball over badminton. (more + noun + than)
• Fewer females than males chose basketball. (fewer + noun + than)
• The TV was more popular among males than females. (more/less + adjective + than)
• The most popular form of communication was the internet. (the most/least + adjective)

These are four different variations (more coming on my webinar and in my book) that you can use to improve your writing.  Example, if you’re making between 2-5 comparisons, if you use four of these, that means you’ve used four different ranges in your writing — which is a huge plus.

Technique: You can also compare information by using as ………. as when numbers are very close, by using not as many ………..as. 

 

Task

Make comparative sentences based on the notes above.

Examples: females/males/pick/Facebook – More females than males pick Facebook as their main social network platform. 

a) males/females/choose/the skytrain

b) women/men/select/Facebook

c) the Internet/choose/males/females

d) females/males/pick/the radio

 

Podcast