Section Two - Describing and Comparing Data
Section 2 / Lesson 1 - Describing and Comparing Data
What will you find in this section?
In the first three lessons of section 2, we will look at all the language you need for the first type of question you may get in your test. In the final two parts, we'll look at how to use this language to plan and write an answer.
What will we do in this lesson?
We will look at ten different ways to compare data.
How should I use this in my exam?
You should aim to use at least three different types of comparative in your answer. While this is an unnatural way to write, it forces us to meet the "uses a variety of complex structures" part of the rubric (see this class). You need to practice using all of these structures until you can meet the "produces frequent error-free sentences" statement.
1. Descriptive Adjectives and Adverbs
We'll start with simple grammar and then increase complexity as we go through the lesson. Make sure you take it slow, don't skip over things you think you know, make notes and practice each step.
Firstly, we can give statement about one data point which often imply a comparison even if they don’t directly state what they are comparing against.
For example, in our example question we can use this to describe a countries population.
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The USA has a sizeable number of residents.
The UK is very small.
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By saying USA has a large number of residents, we are not comparing it to any other country directly. However, when we give statistics about other places, this brings the reader attention to the fact that this is larger.
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Sentence structures:
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You can add adjectives in three differences places within a sentence.
1. Before the noun to add detail to the subject of your sentence(1)
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"The black I-phone rang."
"The small country of the UK is in Europe."
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2. Before the noun to add detail to the object of your sentence
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"I rang the black I-phone"
"The USA has a sizeable number of residents."
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3. After the verb to be or sometimes a verb like 'to seem'​
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"The I-phone is black"
"The UK is very small."
2. Comparative Adjectives
If you want to directly compare two pieces of data, you can use a comparative adjective. Comparative adjectives, like any adjective can be placed in the same three places within the sentence. However, if we want our whole sentence to be about the comparison (most likely), we'll use the third of these structures (after to be):
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If the adjective has one or two syllables (with exceptions):
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Canada is bigger than Australia.
The United Kingdom is smaller than South Africa.
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Subject + to be + adjective + -er + than + object.
If the adjective one or two syllables (with exceptions):
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Canada is more populous than Australia.
South Africa is less populous than The United Kingdom.
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Subject + to be + more / less + adjective + than + object.
Note: don’t mix up 'than' and 'then'. For comparisons, use ‘than’ with an ‘A’.
Note: Be very careful with subjects here. For land area, we can use "the USA is..." as this is how we describe a country's physical size. Most of the time we cannot do this! For the population, we need to say the USA’s population, or the population of the USA is larger than the United Kingdom’s.
3. Adding Detail to Basic Comparatives
We can add detail to our comparison in four different ways:
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1. adding an adverb
2. adding a number
3. saying how many times
4. giving a percentage between the verb 'to be' and the comparative.
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In our example, the UK's population is around 70,000,000 people whereas the USA's population is 330,000,000. We'll add this detail to our comparison using these four different ways. This is not a math class, be we need to be careful that our language describes the numbers accurately with these numbers.
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1. If you feel the number isn't totally necessary for your essay, you can use an adverb to add detail. e.g. far, much, a little, slightly. Don't over use this, as the rest of these methods add more detail.
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The USA's population is far bigger than the UK's population.
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2. Numbers are simple. Just add the difference (330,000,000 - 70,000,000) before the comparison. While this is useful, we want to mix up our language choice.
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The USA's population is 260,000,000 bigger than the UK's population.
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3. The third way to add detail is to say how many times the comparative adjective something is. To do this divide the large number by the smaller number.
330,000,000 / 70,000,000 = 4.7 times
The USA's population is 4.7 times bigger than the UK's population.
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We don’t need to be this detailed, so we can add an adverb such as 'around', 'approximately', 'just under' or 'just over'.
The USA's population is around five times bigger than the UK's population.
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A quick note, a common mistake is to use the word ‘double’. While double does mean “two times”, we cannot use the word double with comparatives.
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4. The fourth way to add detail is by adding a percentage but be careful with these. 50% smaller means half the size (100 – 50 = 50). 50% bigger means half the original onto the original (100 + 50 = 150). The mathematical calculation for this is:
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100 x (final - initial) / initial
100 x (330 - 70) / 70 = 371.42% increase (our example)
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However, you are not allowed a calculator in the test so calculation need to be done mentally. You cannot spend time doing this, so make an estimate and add an adverb such as "approximately" or "around".
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The USA's population is just under 400% bigger than the UK's population.
4. Comparative adjectives with a noun
Earlier, we talked about the three places in a sentence where we can place an adjective.
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1. before the subject noun
2. before the object noun
3. after a verb like to be or to seem.
So far we have focused on number three, as this is the most common. However, let’s look at two ways that we can use a comparative adjective before a noun.
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There + to be + comparative adjective + noun + preposition phrase 1 + than + preposition phrase 2.
There + to be + comparative adjective + noun 1 + preposition phrase + than + noun 2.
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The 'to be' is your main verb and takes the tense of your sentence (we'll focus on this in section 3).
This structure allows us to compare two things. We can either compare two nouns or we can compare two places (preposition phrases).
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In this sentence we compare the single noun between two places (in preposition phrases).
There is a bigger population in the USA than in the UK.
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Here, we compare two nouns in a single place.
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There is a bigger demand for housing in the USA than supply of housing.
5. More, Fewer and Less
If we are using this to describe the number or amount of something (e.g. the number of people), we can use 'there + to be' with 'fewer', 'less' or 'more'. These are all comparative adjectives.
There are more people in America than in the United Kingdom.
There are fewer people in the United Kingdom than in the USA.
There is more land in America than in the United Kingdom.
We use 'more' for countable (people) and uncountable (land) nouns.
We use 'less' for uncountable nouns (land).
We use 'fewer' for countable nouns (people).
Just like above, we can compare two nouns or two places.
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There are more sheep in New Zealand than people.
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Note: Remember these three words are only used for the number or amount of something. A population for example is only a single number and isn't an amount of anything. You cannot have more population, it would be a larger population.
6. Comparing with specific verbs
"There + to be" a good way to introduce most data from a graph, but many more specific verbs can be used too. A population is how many people live in a country. The verb 'to live' could be used to make comparisons.
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More / less / fewer + noun + verb + preposition phrase + than + preposition phrase
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More people live in the USA than in Canada.
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We can also do the same as before and compare two nouns.
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More / less / fewer + noun + verb + preposition phrase + than + noun
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More foreigners live in the UAE than citizens.
However, you need to be very careful that both nouns work with your verb. We don't say that sheep live in. country, so here we need to use the previous "there + to be" structure.
More people live in the USA than sheep.
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There are more sheep in New Zealand than people.
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The preposition phrase can be left out here if it obvious from the context of the essay. Be careful with this.
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You can add details to this structure just like our basic comparisons. Add a number, percentage, adverb or how many times before 'more', 'less' or 'fewer'.
260,000,000 more people live in the USA than in the UK.
Far more people live in the USA than in Canada.
Around five times more people live in the USA than in Canada.
Around 370% more people live in the USA than in Canada.
7. Comparing with 'To have' - be careful!
We could use the possessive noun 'to have' to do the same thing. However, this is often overused by a lot of students and can lead to a lot of mistakes. Some noun can be used this way, but others sound unnatural. Unless you are confident, don't use this structure.
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The USA has a larger population than the UK.
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The USA has a larger size than the UK.
8. Superlatives
If we order the countries by land area, we get Canada, USA, Australia, South Africa, the UK. For the extremes of this list we can use a slight different structure called a superlative.
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If the adjective one or two syllables (with exceptions):
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Canada is the biggest country.
The United Kingdom is smallest country.
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Subject + to be + the + adjective + -est + noun
If the adjective one or two syllables (with exceptions):
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Canada is the most populous country.
The United Kingdom is least populous country.
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Subject + to be + the most / least + adjective + noun
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The final noun is often left out if it obvious what it it. For example, in this sentence, everyone knows that Canada is a country, so we can leave it out.
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We can also use most and least with specific verbs.
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We cannot add detail to a superlative like we can with a comparative (e.g. adverb, number, how many times or a percentage). Because of this, we need to attach another clause with this information, which we'll cover in the next section of this lesson. ​
9. The majority vs. most
Another way to make a composition is to use the majority or most of something plus a verb. We can use this for anything over 50%. In our population example, 60 + 75 + 40 + 30 + 335 is just under half a billion people. Therefore, for any country over 250,000 people we could use this term. However, we cannot say most of the land can be found in Canada as this is not over 50% of the total land. Be very careful with this.
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The majority of / Most of + noun + verb + preposition phrase or noun
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Most of the people live in the USA.
The majority of the people live in the USA.
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Another common mistake is most of vs. most and the majority vs. majority of. If we are using ‘most’ before articles (a/an, the), demonstratives (this, that), possessives (my, your) or pronouns (him, them), we need 'of':
e.g. Most of the cake, most of that cake, most of my cake. If it’s referring to a specific cake, use 'most of'.
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However, if we are talking about something in general without an article (a/an, the), demonstrative (this, that), possessive (my, your) or pronoun (him, them), we use it by itself.
e.g. Most cake is delicious.
Looking back at our example, if we say “most people live in the USA,” this is not true. We know far more people live in India or China. But we can say, “most of these people” or “most of the people” referring to the people in the graph.
10. Comparing Equals
When two pieces of data are the same or close to being the same, this can be just as significant as a difference. The can use the preposition 'as' show this.
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Subject + to be + as + adjective + as + object
The USA is as large as Canada.
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We know this is not quite true, so as always, we can add an adverb.
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The USA is almost as large as Canada.
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We can also use this structure to show that two things are not equal. However, this doesn't give any detail about how closely related they are, so is of little use.
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Canada's population is not as large as the UK's population.
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Specific verbs can be used within our as / as structure. This is the same as the previous 'Comparing with specific verbs' structure, but we replace both the comparative quantifier (More / less / fewer) and 'than' with 'as'.
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More people live in the USA than in Canada.
As people live in the UK as in South Africa.
Summary
This lesson has covered a lot of different ways to compare data. Before taking the test, you need to be comfortable using all of these, and then force yourself to use at least four different methods in your answer. Here are a range of examples from this lesson:
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The USA has a sizeable number of residents
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The USA is more populous than the UK.
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The USA's population is around five times bigger than the UK's population.
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There is a bigger population in the USA than in the UK.
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There are more people in America than in the United Kingdom.
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Around 370% more people live in the USA than in Canada.
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The USA is the most populous country.
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Most of the people live in the USA.
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The majority of the people live in the USA.
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The population of the UK is not as high as in the USA.
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Not as many people live in the UK as in the USA.
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Finally, try to use this all language to complete an introduction to a writing task one here: