Describe and outline: characteristics, not reasons

When a graph has a sudden crash in it, what should a describe answer say about the crash? Picture a line graph of visitors to a national park, in the fictional land of Owlobia. The line climbs steadily for five years, then in one year it crashes to about a third, and then it climbs back past where it was. Your eye goes straight to the crash, and you want to say why it happened. Hold that thought, because a describe question does not ask why. The crash comes back once the describe method is built.

Describe means set out the characteristics of something: what it is, what it is like, or what it looks like, and for a process, its steps in order. It never asks for reasons, so it has a stop line: the moment you write because, you have left describe behind. Here are three sentences about a river near its mouth. A: the river is about two hundred metres wide and flows slowly. B: the river is wide because tributaries have added water. C: the river is the most useful in Owlobia. Which one is a describe sentence: A, B or C? A describes, with a figure for its width. B crosses the stop line, and C is a judgement, which is a different kind of writing altogether.

Describing a pattern on a graph or a map has three parts, said in this order: the trend, the evidence, and the anomaly. The trend is the overall pattern in one sentence. The evidence is figures or places from the resource, with their units and years. The anomaly is the exception, the part that does not fit. Here are the park's visitor numbers, in thousands. Twenty fifteen, two hundred and ten. Then two hundred and twenty-five, two hundred and thirty-eight, two hundred and fifty-one, and two hundred and sixty-three in twenty nineteen. In twenty twenty, ninety-six. Then one hundred and eighty, two hundred and forty-seven, two hundred and seventy in twenty twenty-three, and two hundred and eighty-two in twenty twenty-four. The question asks you to describe the changes, and it adds: use data in your answer. Use data means figures with their years, and changes, with an s, means more than one change. Have a go at this one before I show you: what is the trend in visitor numbers? Visitor numbers rose overall, from two hundred and ten thousand in twenty fifteen to two hundred and eighty-two thousand in twenty twenty-four. That is an increase of seventy-two thousand. Stopping at the trend falls short. One examiner's report on a question about a relationship on a graph records: "Many candidates appeared content to identify the relationship between GNI per capita and life expectancy and add nothing else, hence why so many only achieved 1 mark." The fix is to treat the trend as your first sentence, never your only one. The second change is about the rate, with its own figure: the rise was steady, year on year, up to two hundred and sixty-three thousand in twenty nineteen, and then it broke. One examiner's report on a question that asked for changes notes: "Fewer candidates identified a second change, which was required by the question." Circling the s in changes before you write is the habit that catches it. Now the anomaly, the crash from the start of this video. Use a figure and a year, and no because. How would you describe the twenty twenty crash? The exception is twenty twenty, when numbers fell sharply to ninety-six thousand, before recovering to two hundred and seventy thousand by twenty twenty-three, above the twenty nineteen level. Compare that with a student who writes: numbers fell in twenty twenty because the park was closed. What has that student's sentence lost, and what has it gained? It has lost the figure, and it has gained a guess at a reason the question never asked for. At the word because, cross the sentence out and put the figure back. The use data instruction carries weight too. One examiner's report says that, although many answers were good, "a significant number of candidates did not make use of data as directed by the question." The fix is to circle use data in the question, then put a figure with its unit and its year into each point you make. Figures on their own fall short as well. One examiner's report says that "some candidates just listed data", which earned them only the mark for using data. So each figure goes after a pattern sentence, as its evidence.

A map gets the same three parts, and compass points do the work that years did on the graph. A map shows a county in eastern Owlobia with fourteen large supermarkets. Nine are in or around the county town, Marksby, in the centre. Three are along the main road running east from Marksby to the coast. Two are in the two coastal towns in the east. The west of the county is uplands. The trend comes first: most of the supermarkets, nine of the fourteen, are clustered in and around Marksby in the centre. Then the evidence: three more are strung out along the main road east to the coast, with two in the coastal towns. Now you finish it. What does the map's anomaly sentence say? There are none in the uplands of the west. On a map, a gap is an anomaly too, and it gets its own sentence with a compass point. Two habits keep a map description exact. Use compass points, never left or up, and say most when the data says most, never all. Listing all fourteen supermarkets one by one would describe every place and no pattern. One examiner's report on a map of deserts says: "Some candidates lost valuable time by describing the locations of all the deserts shown on Fig. 1 or giving reasons to explain the locations of deserts." The same report notes that "the best answers used the TEA structure", T E A for trend, evidence, anomaly. It adds: "Many of the candidates were given 3 marks." This is a question you can win. A relationship between two things gets the same care. A graph of invented figures plots countries by income per person against the share of their workers on farms. The poorest country has about sixty per cent of its workers on farms, and the richest has about two per cent. How would you describe that link between income and the share working on farms? As income rises, the share working on farms falls. Then a pair of values backs it, one from each end of the graph, and any exception is named. One examiner's report on a relationship question records that a large proportion of answers, once they had named the relationship, "would offer explanations". The fix is to describe the relationship, back it with values, and stop. Two more shapes use the same habits. To describe a location, give a compass direction, a distance and named features from the map. To describe from what you know, give separate statements, each a point with a detail added, and they do not need to be linked.

Outline means a brief account of the essential points, and on some courses it sits beside describe as its own command word. It wants each point with a short development where there is room, and no long explanation. A question that says outline one way wants the point, then one detail linking it to the place in the question. Here is one to try. Outline one way that building a new high-speed railway line could affect a village close to its route. A student's point is: for several years of building work, heavy lorries and machinery bring noise and dust to the village. Three students each add a second sentence. Sentence A: it will not be quiet. Sentence B: this disturbs residents at home and slows traffic on the village's narrow lanes. Sentence C: this is because lorries are heavy. Which second sentence develops the point: A, B or C? B develops it, because it carries the point on to what the works do to daily life there. Now the harder part: why does A add nothing at all? A states the opposite of the first sentence, so it says the same thing again in reverse. One examiner's report on an outline answer puts it this way: "the second part of the answer adds nothing as it states the opposite to the first." And C crosses the stop line with its because. The fix for all three is the same: after the point, add one detail about what it does to the place in the question.

Run back through it with me, and answer each one before I do.

What are the three parts of describing a pattern, in order? Trend, evidence, anomaly: the overall pattern, figures or places as proof, then the exception.

Now the plural: the question says changes. How many do you give? More than one, each with a figure and a year, and a change in rate counts as one of them.

Now a new map: most factories lie along a river in the east, none in the western hills. What is the trend sentence? Most of the factories are in the east, along the river. The empty hills in the west would be its anomaly sentence.

Now outline: after the point, what comes next? One detail that develops it for the place in the question, never the point said again in reverse.

Back to the national park graph. The crash gets its own sentence, with its figure and its year: ninety-six thousand in twenty twenty. The why can wait for a question that asks why.

If trend, evidence and anomaly feel like that's in the bag, give this one a thumbs-up. If it felt fast, that's normal, so save it and take it again at a slower pace.

Next in the chapter is Explain questions: giving reasons how and why. Hopefully that's next in your feed, but if not, search for ScholaFly G E oh one, oh four.

Every other video is on scholafly.com too, easy to search by video code or by keyword. Whatever you're revising, go there and have a look, or, watch the next video.