ILETS Task Line graph: Precantage of workers with Illness Absence

Number of Work-Loss Days due to illness

The graph below shows the percentage of workers in 5 different European countries with a days or more illness absence from 1991 to 2001.

The line chart illustrate the percentage of workers absent for illness in 5 countries(namely Netherlands, France, Sweden, the UK and Germany)between 1991 and 2001.

From the graph, the rate of Netherlands starts from almost 5% in 1991 then reach its peak at somewhere in the 5 % in 1992. Then, the rate declines stably for the next 5 years.

Referring to the absence rates of France and Sweden, in the beginning of the period, are 5 % and 3% respectively. While the percentage of sick leave in France declined markedly, the percentage of Sweden climbed stably and both of the rates, in 1995, stood at a slightly more than 3%. After that, the percentage of workers absence due to illness in Sweden had a sustain growth, while France remain in approximately 3%.

It is interesting to see that the percentage of workers with a day or more illness absence in the UK and Germany follow a similar trend. the rates of workers absent for sickness in the UK and Germany are somewhere in the 2.5% and 1.5% respectively.

Overall, it can be seen that there was a considerably fluctuation of percentage of workers have sick leave in Netherlands from 1991 to 2001 and the rate in France shows a rapid decrease during the period in the question.

(232 words, duration: 21:45)
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1. I am confused about what tense I should use in what kind of description.
2. I think I may miss the information about workers with days of more illness absence when I tried to paraphrase the question.
3. How do I shorten the essay but still focus to the topic without missing any important information?
I am aiming for finish the essay between 150-180 words within 15 minutes, is it possible?

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I think it is your first time to write an essay about IELTS task 1 right? From my point of view, the first thing you should do is to follow the general outline of task 1, which includes the introduction (paraphrase), an overview statement (the trend of each line, increase in Netherlands and Sweden, decrease in France and no change in the UK and Germany), body 1, body 2. There is no need to write the conclusion, just write your conclusion if you find that all those things you just wrote don't meet requirements of enough words.

Lin, let me respond to your individual questions first.

1. Since the dates given are in the past then you must use past tense references for this paper. You cannot use any other tense because of the years indicated having already gone by.

2. The proper reference would have been "starting in the year 1991 and ending 2001." That method of presentation is all encompassing of the dates indicated in the line chart.

3. Do not aim to shorten the essay because when you aim to write less, you end up missing important information. It is always better to write more, say around 200 words, and then edit from there. You cannot possibly write a proper analytical essay, in a finished form, within 15 minutes. You may take 15 minutes to write a draft though. Aim to be thorough in your presentation instead of short in presentation because you are being judged on the thoroughness of your analysis, not on the number of words you have written. For example there are overlapping points to consider for similarities between absence rates in countries. If you write less words, then that analysis will not be included in your presentation. What you can try to do next time is try to batch the information by year brackets or by countries with similar trends, then offer a deeper analysis of the other parts of the chart based upon the importance of the information.

As much as possible, you should refrain from writing any information in parenthesis because these are standard, required information. All of the information in a Task 1 essay must be presented and used in an official, part of the paragraph form.

By the way, the overview information should be presented in paragraph format instead of stand alone sentences in order to adhere to the C&C scoring considerations that require a complete format presentation for each paragraph. That means completing at least 3 sentences per paragraph which will help you meet the minimum requirements. The maximum is 5 sentences. So that should have:

1. Chart type information
2. Basic information from the chart
3. Measurements used and how it was acquired (if provided)
4. Trending information
5. Discussion instructions (if provided)

Merging your first 2 stand alone presentations at the top of the essay would have fulfilled most of the requirements above, resulting in a higher TA and C&C score for yourself.