Section 5 / Lesson 2 - Describing Locations
When describing what changed between the two maps, you also need to describe where the change happened. When describing the location of a place, you need four things in your sentence:
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a description of the place you are describing the location of
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a verb
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a ‘where’ phrase
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a second place to compare the location of the first to
1 + 4 - Describing a Place
Most of the words that you need to describe the map will be given to you on the exam paper. Using synonyms often leads to errors as you need to be very specific. However, you may want to group buildings together to reduce repetition and make your writing more concise. For instance, instead of describing every apartment building in a city, describe changes to the overall 'urban area'. There are also some general words that are often left unmarked on the map that you need to know. ​​
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General types of area
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Urban area - can be used as a synonym for where lots of people live
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Rural area - can be used as a synonym for where not many people live
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Residential area – an area with houses or apartment buildings
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Commercial area – an area with lots of shops or businesses
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Industrial area – a place with factories and where things are produced
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Agricultural area / farmland - an area where crops or animals are raised for food
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Types of road (large to small)
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highway/freeway/motorway – large multiple-lane road between cities
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main road - large road between smaller places
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local road - small roads inside an area
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country lane – a small winding road outside of a town
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cycle lane – for riding bicycles
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path – for pedestrians walking only
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trail – a path in the countryside going over mountains.
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​​
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Intersection/junction – general word where two roads meet
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T-Junction – a junction where one road meets another.
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Crossroad – a junction with one road crosses another.
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Roundabout​
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Types of countryside
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Forest / woods - large area of trees
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Mountain - large hill
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Valley - area between mountains or hills
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River - carries water to a lake or the sea
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stream - small river that runs into a larger river
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brook / tributary - a small stream
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bay/cove - round area of water connected to the sea
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2 - Verb Choice
Residential area
Commercial area
roundabout
T-junction
crossroads
bay or cove
Most of the time we’ll just use the verb ‘to be’ when describing a location. However, to mix up your language, there are a few more verbs that we can add to our writing. We shall look at tense choice in a following lesson as this can be difficult on this type of writing task.
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is/are
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is located
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is situated
3 - where phrase
We need a word or phrase to show how the two places relate to each other. These are usually prepositions, but for the sake of simplicity, I’ll call these ‘where phrases’.
The most common type of phrase you’ll need to use is to show the fact that two places to alongside each other. This is because we’ll typically order our answer by area (see the planning lesson of this section). Make sure you use a range of these phrases in your answer.
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next to
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just beyond
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a little beyond
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just past
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to the left of
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to the right of
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alongside
If something is between the two objects, and one front is facing the other front, we can use these words and phrases:
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opposite
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in front of
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across from
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The opposite of this is 'behind'.
There are often compass directions on the maps. There are two ways we can use this. Firstly, we can say where it is relative to the whole map.
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in the North/South/East/West of
(A is in the north of the town)
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We can also use them relative to another item on the map.
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to the North/South/East/West of
(A is to the north of B)
If the map shows the side of one or multiple buildings, we typically can not use compass directions. Instead, we use the orientation of the building itself to describe where things are.
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just through the entrance
(A is just through the entrance of the building)
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on the 3rd floor
(B is on the 3rd floor of the building)​
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at the back of the building
(B is at the back of the building)
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on the left side of the building
A is on the left side of the building.
Putting them together as a sentence
These are two structures that you can use in your answer:
place 1
+
verb
+
where
phrase
+
place 2
where
phrase
+
place 2
+
verb
+
place 1
Here are some examples for describing the questions from the previous lesson.
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The park is located across from the school.
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The forest is situated in the north of the town.
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The park is to the north of the industrial area.
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The residential area is located on the road to the west of the town.
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Across the road from the local shop there is the stage.
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To the south of the park there is the industrial area.