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Outside the Box Trends and Graphs
To describe graphs well in English, you need to be able to use a variety of verb-adverb and adjective-noun
collocations, the correct prepositions, and also the correct denotation of complicated numbers. Lets
begin by looking at the verb-adverb collocations.

To go up, to rise, to increase, to gain, to ascend, to grow

To go down, to drop, to fall, to decline, to descend

To rocket, to soar

To plummet

To level off, to flatten out

To stagnate

To remain constant, to stay the same

To improve, to recover

To peak, to hit a peak, to reach a high

To bottom out, to hit a low

To fluctuate, to undulate, to rise and fall

To double

To halve
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englischbox 2012 http://www.englischbox.com/how-to-describe-graphs.html
Outside the Box Trends and Graphs
How can we use adverbs to adjust the meaning of the verbs and provide a more interesting and detailed
description? Have a look at the examples below.

Sales rose rapidly / quickly / sharply / steeply / dramatically / drastically.

Sales fell gradually / steadily / slowly / gently / moderately / little by little.

To add some variation to our description, we can also use adjective-noun collocations. Look how easy it is
to convert a verb-adverb collocation into an adjective-noun collocation:
Sales rose rapidly > There was a rapid rise in sales.
Sales fell slowly > There was a slow fall in sales.
Rainfall dropped dramatically in December > There was a dramatic drop in rainfall in December.
Rainfall increased significantly in June > There was a significant increase in rainfall in June.
Finally, it is important to know when to use which preposition. The most common prepositions that are
used when describing graphs include FROM, TO, BY, AT, OF and IN.
FROM and TO are used for movement between two figures.
Profits have gone up from $4 million to $6 million.
Sales have dropped from 20 thousand units a month to just 15 thousand units a month.
Following the investment, the number of employees at the company soared from 20 to 200.
BY is used to denote the difference.
Profits have increased by $2 million this year.
Hours of sunshine typically drop by between one and two hours during the month of August.
The price of petrol rose by two pence last week.
AT is used to denote a static point on the graph.
Profits for this year currently stand at $6 million.
Daily newspaper sales peaked at 100,000 on the 2
nd
of March, the day after the royal wedding.
OF is used following nouns of trend to denote the amount.
There has been an increase of $2 million dollars in our profits this year.
Although the figures fluctuated a lot over the course of the year, there was a notable and sustained rise
of about 10,000 citizens who emigrated from England in August.
IN is used after an adjective-noun collocation to denote what has changed.
There was a jump in the number of cases of the illness in late September.
There has been a drastic fall in the number of nurses working in A&E.
englischbox 2012 http://www.englischbox.com/how-to-describe-graphs.html
Activity Box Trends and Graphs
1. Which verb best describes the trend shown? Choose from the verbs below.
to rocket to fluctuate to decrease to rise to double to plummet to peak


a. __________ b. __________ c. __________ d. __________ e. __________ f. __________ g. __________
2. Choose the most similar sentence (1 or 2) to the example sentence given.
a. There was a steady rise in sales during 2011.
1. Sales went up exponentially in the year 2011.
2. Sales increased gradually over the course of 2011.
b. The number of fans at the stadium fluctuated significantly last season.
1. The amount of fans in attendance rose and fell a lot last season.
2. Attendance at the football matches hit a low in September and peaked in December.
c. The boy bands popularity plummeted following revelations about the lead singers criminal past.
1. The boy bands popularity fell dramatically after coverage of the lead singers criminal past.
2. The boy bands popularity dropped little by little when news of the lead singers criminal past
came out.
d. Viewing figures of the soap opera hit a years high when Janes true identity was revealed.
1. The number of people watching the soap opera increased to 10 million when the mystery was
solved.
2. The number of viewers peaked when the mystery surrounding Janes identity was cleared up.
3. Complete the following description with the correct prepositions.
I founded my web design company at the beginning of last year and immediately took on two full-
time employees, which enabled us to offer more services to our clients. Consequently, our monthly
income rose 1._______ 30,000 in just three months, 2._______ 60,000 in January 3._______
90,000 in April. Our income continued going up. Profits for the first six months stood 4._______
approximately 60,000. I increased the size of our workforce 5._______ two with the employment of
one programmer and one user experience expert. Once again, there was a rise 6._______ the variety
of services we could offer. Our profits peaked 7._______ 50,000 in November before a slight drop
8._______ about 20,000 leading up to Christmas.
4. The paragraph above is a description of a relatively successful year for my company. Formulate a
similar text to describe an unsuccessful year for the company. For example: Two employees left the
company, reducing the services we could offer and resulting in a fall in our profitability
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