You will receive a higher mark if your writing uses a range of structures and vocabulary correctly rather than a limited number. For example, the candidate who writes:
The number of cases of X disease started at 50 in 1965 and then went up to 200 in 1970 and then went up to 500 in 1980 and then went down to zero in 1990.
will lose marks for being repetitive. You should therefore practise writing reports using a wide variety of terms to describe the different movements in the graphs and different structures to vary your writing.
Describing Trends
Trends are changes or movements. These changes are normally expressed in numeric items, for example, population, production volumes or unemployment. There are three basic trends:
Expressing Movement: Nouns and Verbs
For each trend there are a number of verbs and nouns to express the movement. We can use a verb of change, for example:
Unemployment levels fell
Or we can use a related noun, for example:
There was a fall in unemployment levels
| Direction | Verbs | Nouns |
 | Rose (to) Increased (to) Went up (to) Climbed (to) Boomed | A rise An increase Growth An upward trend A boom (a dramatic rise) |
 | Fell (to) Declined (to) Decreased (to) Dipped (to) Dropped (to) Went down (to) Slumped (to) Reduced (to) | A decrease A decline A fall A drop A slump (a dramatic fall) A reduction |
 | Levelled out (at) Did not change Remained stable (at) Remained steady (at) Stayed constant (at) Maintained the same level | A levelling out No change |
| Fluctuated (around) Peaked (at) Plateaued (at) Stood at (we use this phrase to focus on a particular point, before we mention the movement, for example: In the first year, unemployment stood at … ) | A fluctuation Reached a peak (of) Reached at plateau (at) |
Describing the movement: Adjectives and Adverbs
Sometimes we need to give more information about a trend as follows:
There has been a slight increase in the value of the dollar
(degree of change)
Unemployment fell rapidly last year (the speed of change)
Remember that we modify a noun with an adjective (a slight increase)
and a verb with an adverb (to increase slightly).
