MUET MOMENTS: Lesson 10: Information transfer from graphic representation to text

By DR KOH SOO LING

Information transfer from graphic representation to text

Common problems related to describing and interpreting graphic representations are:
•  Not Understanding the Data (I) — Not Reading the Labels: Students do not correctly understand the data in the charts: often they do not  read the labels carefully (e.g. student writes “12 people were injured in the recent tsunami”, when they should write “120  people were injured in the recent tsunami”).
•  Not Understanding the Data (II) — Not Applying Common Sense to Your Interpretations: Students do not apply  common sense to the interpretation of data in the charts (e.g. in the example above, it is unlikely that only 12 people were injured in the recent tsunami; we should then analyse the chart carefully to find a more satisfactory interpretation).
•  Just “Listing” the Data: Students simply “list” data from charts or graphs without trying to indicate what is more or less important.  You should take note of large differences or changes and present them first.
•  Not “Translating” Note Form to Grammatical English: Labels or titles are usually in note form, so you need to change them into grammatically correct English in your writing. For example, in a chart entitled the danger of obesity in Malaysia, one label may be the number of people affected by the disease. It would therefore be ungrammatical to say “the number of obesity people”; we need to change that to the number of obese people instead.

Practice A
Choose the best option to make the sentences grammatically correct:
1. The main reason that young people (shoplift/shoplifts) is because they want to prove that they can get away with a crime.
2. Shoplifting is a crime that is present in (any/some) country.
3. Retailers (report/reports) that 0.6 per cent of all missing inventory  are due to shoplifters.
4. In 2001, shoplifting (cost/ costs) US retailers US$25 million (RM75 million) a day.
5. Retailers focusing on loss (preventing/prevention) often devote most of their resources to closed-circuit television.
6.  It is one of the most common property crimes (dealt/deal) with by police and courts.
7. Most shoplifters are amateurs; however, there are people and groups who make their (lives/living) from shoplifting,
8. Many big retail or grocery stores have a loss (prevent/prevention) officer to keep an eye out for shoplifters.
9. Trained staff know the basics, observe the person, observe the item,  note the concealment and wait until the shoplifter (leave/ leaves) the store to make the arrest.
10. If apprehended during the shoplifting, the merchandise is generally (recover/recovered) by the retailers.

Next week: Speaking strategies I
                                                                 
ANSWERS:
1. shoplifts            
2. any               
3. report         
4. cost
5. prevention
6. dealt                  
7. living            
8. prevention       
9. leaves   
10. recovered

Source: Learning Curve - New Straits Times