Episode 10
【✏ Writing-Wise Series ✒】
[Standardized English exams]
In standardized English exams such as IELTS (雅思) and BESTEP (培力英檢), most of the changes we come across in statistical information are merely increases 📈 and decreases 📉 over a certain period of time, as introduced in several episodes ago. However, changes in numbers are not so steady as we imagine.
In some situations, a certain number may first climb to a high point and then go downward ↗↘, or oppositely, drop to the bottom and them turn upward ↘↗. Besides describing the highest or lowest point with expressions like “the record high”, “summit” and “trough” introduced before, we might have to consider the overall change with the following verbs:
↗↘ toss (you might know “tossing a coin” – consider how the coin moves!), …
↘↗ bounce back, rebound, rally, recover, …
In some cases, like those in the stock market, some figures might demonstrate frequent ups and downs 😵. Then, the following verbs and adjectives can be used:
🔵 Verbs: fluctuate, waver, vacillate, …
⚠ “vacillate” carries a negative connotation, i.e. don’t use it unless you find the fluctuation abnormal or unacceptable.
🔴 Adjectives: erratic, fluctuating, volatile, unstable, …
When a number does not show any significant (or even observable) change over a certain period of time ➡, you may adopt these verbs or adjectives to present such an unchanging situation:
🟢 Verbs: level out, stabilize, …
🟡 Adjectives: steady, gradual, …
You may come across two or even more curves (to put it simply, lines) meeting each other 🔀 in a line graph. This means two numbers become the same at a certain point of time. This can be said to be “a cusp”, “a crossing” or “an intersection” of these two curves.
The above paragraph heralds a new chapter of statistical description – in quite a few situations, we need to compare two or even more (sets of) numbers, but this may be a difficulty unnoticed to many speakers of Chinese just because of first-language interference 😣. Therefore, in the next few episodes, vocabulary items, sentence patterns and common mistakes concerning how to make comparisons will be introduced. Stay tuned. 😉