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How to Describe Image – Bar Charts

No idea how to approach the Describe Image task on PTE Academic? Need to improve your vocabulary for describing bar charts? Need to improve your Speaking score overall? This post is a must-read!

About the task

For general information about the Describe Image task, make sure you check out our previous post on How to Do Describe Image for PTE Academic. Bar charts are extremely common in the Describe Image task. To get a high score, use the following structure:

  1. Introduction Introduce the title of the chart. This bar chart illustrates…

  2. Main points Don’t try and talk about everything! Focus only on the information that stands out the most (some have been underlined in the examples below). The highest… The lowest… The majority….

  3. Conclude A conclusion is optional, but you can say something about the chart overall. Overall…

For more vocabulary for describing graphs and charts, click here.

Single Bar Chart

In Describe Image you have 25 seconds to prepare and 40 seconds to speak. Here is an example:

Example:

Introduction: This bar chart illustrates the population, in millions, of various countries in Europe, in the year 2007.

Main points:

In this year, the country with the highest population was Germany, which had about 80 million people. The second and third highest were France and Italy respectively, with around 60 million inhabitants, followed by Spain with just over 40 million. Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland and Greece all had less than 15 million. The country with the lowest population was Estonia.

Conclusion

A concluding sentence is not always necessary. Furthermore, as there is a lot of information in this chart so you may not have time. Instead, focus on including all the main points.

Double Bar Chart

The approach is similar, but for double bar charts (often with two groups) make sure you compare the groups.

Example:

Introduction: This bar chart depicts number of children that participated in camp activities, showing separate figure for boys and girls. There are four activities listed: tennis, swimming, canoeing and crafts.

Main points:

The most popular sport for both boys and girls was swimming. Thirty-five girls and thirty-five boys participated in this activity. The second most popular sport was tennis, however more girls took part in this than boys. Third was canoeing, which was more popular with the boys. The least popular activity was craft, which only 10 girls and 5 boys participated in.

Conclusion Overall swimming was the most popular activity, which suggests that the camp probably took place during summer.

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