Episode 7

【✏ Writing-Wise Series ✒】

[Standardized English exams]

You have already gained the mastery of the basic vocabulary about how numbers increase and decrease after reading the previous two issues 🤠.  However, if you cannot use correct prepositions, your presentation may be confusing, or you may even give wrong information 😧.

Consider the following example: if a number increased from its lowest point 500 to the highest point 2,500 within a certain period (5️⃣0️⃣0️⃣➡2️⃣5️⃣0️⃣0️⃣).  Which preposition would you use to fill in each of these sentences below? 🤔

🔵   The number increased _____ 500.

🔴   The number increased _____ 2,500.

🟢   The number increased _____ 2,000.

The first two should not be challenging to you 😎: they should be “from” and “to” respectively.  The third sentence above shows how much the number increased ↗, and you have to use “by” to indicate the difference.

To summarize for the time being:

🔵   from + starting point

🔴   to + end point

🟢   by +  how much to increase/decrease (difference)

One more thing to let you know – the above example can also be presented as:

🟡   The number increased by a factor of 5.

You should know that “500 ´ 5 = 2,500”, so “5” is the multiple (倍數), but we have to use the prepositional phrase “by the factor of” (rather than ❌ “multiple”) to depict the number of times larger or smaller.

In some situations, the statistics are presented in terms of percentages.  The things might become more complicated when it comes to their increases and decreases.  This will be introduced in the next issue.  Stay tuned. 😉