MUET MOMENTS: Lesson 9: Information transfer from graphic representation to text

By DR KOH SOO LING

Information transfer from graphic representation to text



Study and understand the graphic representation to know the general idea. You can ask questions like, "What is the main subject? " "What is documented along the X/Y axis?" You can also look for extreme points of data, for example, the highest, the lowest, the greatest or the smallest.

Remember to look for details along the vertical axis or the  horizontal axis. You can also obtain information from the title, source, legend and scale.

Vocabulary for Describing Trends
1. Downward movement
decline, crash, decrease, collapse, drop, plummet, fall, plunge, slide, fall, plunge, slide, take a fall, lose ground, weaken

2. Upward movement
climb, soar, rise, gain, increase, go though the roof, surge, jump, rocket, rally, strengthen, high

3. Stability
flatten out, bounce back, hold steady, rally, level off, recover, stabilise, stable

4. To specify the degree of change
slow, disastrous, steady, massive, slight, perilous, sharp, rapid, gradual, heavy, low

Population of Country X from 2003 to 2007
The table shows the population of Country X from 2003 to 2007. You can see that in 2003 the population was 5.25 million and that by the year 2007 it had grown to 5.45 million. There was an increase of 0.2 million or 200,000 people.  We can see that the population of Country X  increased gradually  from 2003 to 2007.

Example 2
These two  charts show the relative size of exports by percentage of countries of the European Union in 2009 and 2010.

The first thing to notice is that there is very little change: the minimum change is 2% and the maximum change is 4%. The second change to notice is which countries' exports grew (as a proportion of the whole) and which countries' exports shrank.

You can see that the exports of Countries X, Y and Z fell from 2009 to 2010 (from 37% to 35%, from 22% to 30% and from 12% to 10% respectively).

The largest growth in export share was that of Country V which increased its share from 11% to 15%. Country W's share of the EU export percentage grew by 2%.

In spite of the change in Country X's export percentage, it remained the largest export percentage share of the European Union.

Next Week: Information Transfer II

Source: Learning Curve - New Straits Times