Topic analysis: 

– For exercises that combine more than 2 charts, candidates should divide the test into several sections, each section corresponding to a type of chart.

– For the type of questions that contain a timeline, candidates need to find trends that change over the years. There are usually 4 types of trends:

+ Uptrend

+ Downtrend

+ The trend remains the same

+ Fluctuating trend (increase, decrease continuously)

– Candidates need to determine the position (order) of each quantity mentioned in the lesson.

– In the above question, for the bar chart form, we can easily see that most of the students completed the task on time. Besides, there is an increasing trend in completing the task while the number of students who did not complete the task tends to decrease.

Sample reference:

Given in the bar chart is the number of postgraduates in a UK university who finished both on time and late, did not submit and rewrite their thesis in three separate years : 1990, 2000 and 2010.

     In general, while most students completed their thesis on time, the three remaining categories took up a mere portion. In addition, there was a growing among postgraduates to have their thesis done whereas a decline was observed in those who failed to write. 

     Regarding the year 1990, an overwhelming quantity of 150 students was reported to complete their thesis on time, as opposed to a three times lower number of over 50 among those who failed to write. This trend continued to take place over the next 20 years in which the number of postgraduates who managed to finish their work on time consistently topped the chart.

     Over the given 20-year timespan, the number of students who shared an inclination towards completion kept rising. Starting at 150, the figure of those completing their thesis on time then marked a twofold increase to over 300 in 2010. A similar pattern was followed by those completing late, albeit to a lesser extent, from roughly 10 students to 50 in 2010. The number of students who had to rewrite their thesis also registered a rise but this was not to last as a marginal decline was observed in the last 10 years. Meanwhile, there was a downward trend witnessed in the number of students redoing their dissertations, recording a decline of around 50 students over the examination time frame.