The bar chart compares the worldwide sales figures for four different games over 6 years period

digital games selling rate

The bar graph shows the global sales (in billions of dollars) of different types of digital games between 2000 and 2006.

The bar chart compares the worldwide sales figures for four different games over the period of 6 years.

It is clear that handheld games were the most popular games among all four types of games. The figures for mobile phone games and online games gradually increased, while console games saw an opposite trend over the 6-year period.

In 2000, nearly 12 billion dollars was spent on handheld games. This was almost two times as much as the figure for console games. In 2002, the figures for cell phone games and online games were fairly similar, at about 1 billion.

It is obvious that handheld games witnessed a stable increase and reached its peak at less than 18 billion in the year 2006. The figure for online games dramatically jumped to 9 billion, while the number of mobile phone games gradually rose by 6 billion. Nevertheless, console games experienced a gradual decrease and fell to its lowest point at almost 3 billion in 2006.

Please rate my article, thanks.

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Hi Chang

your essay is pretty good to me however I think that you should mention the years in your introduction.

over the period of 6 years from 2000 to 2006

Irene, you need to group the discussion points per mobile game, then the sales per year based on the chart. That will allow you to deliver a clear comparison of the sales and create an easier to follow discussion because the reader knows that the information per paragraph is grouped into connected discussions.

Try to develop a better summary overview. The one you have at the moment is inadequate as it does not deliver a clear idea of what the discussion instruction is. You also need to create paraphrased lines that are more different than the original. The one that you have right now is almost exactly the same as the original. It also does not deliver complete information regarding the types of games indicated in the chart and the trending information needs to be better integrated into the overview summary.

While you wrote more than the required word count, it would have been better for your overall score if you could have developed complete 5 sentence paragraphs. The more the lines in a paragraph, the better chances you have of increasing your GRA score through the development of possibly more complex sentences.

Overall, I think you could score a 4 with this essay. There is still room for improvement on your end and I believe that we have the time to accomplish that. Just keep writing and focusing on improving using the suggestions that I have provided to you.

By the way, I would appreciate it if you could include the complete original prompt discussion and instruction next time. I think I can offer you a better review and score if you give me the instructions that you were provided with originally.

@Holt
Thank you for your help.

Hmm. I think you should practice more in task 1. Your summary does not convey all the main information. One advice from my teacher is that our summary should be clear and concrete; therefore, readers can understand properly without looking at the chart. This is my suggestion for the instruction:

The chart illustrates information about the selling of four different types of digital games worldwide within six years from 2000 to 2006. As an overall, handheld games came first in the race while console games were the least significant contributor by the end of the surveyed period.

Hellooo there..., it is your task to classify the data and compare them based on the instruction of IELTS task 1. Not only this, your skills in paraphrasing and summarizing are tested. Let me come first with the paraphrasing. This skill is needed when you start writing your opening paragraph. From your first paragraph, you did not cover this skill smoothly. Let me give you a try: A breakdown of the different kinds of digital games is presented in the bar chart. The data is taken from 2000 to 2006 and measured in billions of dollars. This essay will compare and contrast the figure for those games and be followed by a brief conclusion at the end. As you can see, I develop my introductory paragraph into three sentences in a row. By doing this, I help readers develop their understanding towards my report before they accomplish to read the whole essay. This also works in real exam condition. Help examiners to help you mark your writing easily. Again, the rest of paragraphs is not well-developed. You need to divide the data into two. This can be classified based on years or figures. But, for me, I prefer doing it with the first approach: by years. With this approach, then you write your essay with different tenses; Past tense and Past Perfect tense. Hope this helps :D

- Eddy Suaib

@monopolymi
Hi, I'd like to rewrite a sentence for you:

In 2000, nearly 12 billion ... => ... handheld games, almost twice the figure for console games.

You didn't actually need "as much as", twice the figure is sufficient. The two sentences could also been combined to one.

Sentence construction poor, however interpretation is good.

Hi monopolymi,

A few pieces of advice:

1. In the introductory statement, while you are paraphrasing the question, please include some more information from the chart , such as, year range and the name of the different games (as they are not many)

2.The paragraph for overall trend is decent (scope for improvement is there) and it's better if you use the word "overall" at the beginning of this paragraph.

3. I think what your report lacks the most is comparison among different figures. You just represented the data as they are in the chart given, but you did not show your analytical skills by comparing the figures. Another thing which I think you should improve upon is your ability to group and summarise information logically. I did not understand the logic behind the grouping of two body paragraphs.