A random image/graph is displayed on the screen, and you get only 25 seconds to study it and then talk about it for the next 30-40 seconds! It is not the easiest task to do, and in fact, a lot of students find it to be the most difficult task of the examination.

Now let us have a look at how some of our most successful candidates handle it, shall we?

This strategy will enable you to tackle any describe image question in the exam, no matter how difficult.

A key aspect to do well in the ‘describe image’ is to speak entire sentences without pauses in between.

But when you look at an image for the first time, it can get difficult. You need to extract meaningful information from it within a short amount of time.

Even if you can come with ideas on what to say, converting those ideas into meaningful sentences is often the hard part. This process often leaves us with hesitations while we speak, which is not good.

So how do we solve this problem?

The secret is having a set of pre-defined sentence structure or templates, which needs to be flexible enough to be used in a wide variety of situations. You do not necessarily need to use these structures all the time, but it can be a handy tool to fall back on when you are stuck or are not sure what to say.

Below is an example of a structure that you can use along with examples:

  • Introduction:
    The given line chart/bar graph/pie chart/image shows/compares, “……”

  • Main Body:
    By studying the graph/image it can be clearly seen that, “……”

  • Conclusion:(Answer to our question, “What can I conclude from looking at this?”)
    In conclusion, this a very informative/useful graph/image that tells us about, “……”. 

Now that we have an idea about how to attempt this exercise, let us try a couple of examples.

 Example 1:

Sample Answer

The given bar graph shows, “the global distribution of military expenditure in the year 2012”.

By studying the graph it can be clearly seen that“the United States of America spent the most amount of money on military expenses in the given year.”

We can also see that China is second at 9.5% of the world’s expenditure on Military.

In conclusion, this a very informative graph that tells us, “how much major countries around the world are spending on their armed forces”.

Example 2:

Sample Answer

The given image shows, “migration statistics to Australia for the year 2014 to 2015”.

By studying the image it can be clearly seen that“The majority of people moving to Australia fall under the skilled visa stream.”

We can also see that the program had space for 190,000 migrants, which has increased over the previous years.

In conclusion, this a very informative graph that tells us about, “the number of people migrating to Australia and the purpose of the migration program”.

 

Ramneek Lamba

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