Why vocabulary accuracy matters
Lexical Resource is 25% of your Task 1 score. The examiner is not counting how many "advanced" words you use — they are checking whether your vocabulary is precise. A student who writes "far exceeded" for a value that is five times larger and "marginally higher" for a narrow gap demonstrates more lexical control than a student who writes "more than" for every comparison.
Below are the seven data patterns you will encounter in IELTS bar charts. Each one comes with a visual guide, a set of accurate words, and an example sentence showing how to use them in a report.
The patterns and their words
Common vocabulary mistakes
These are real mistakes from student reports. In each case, the problem is not grammar — it is choosing a word that does not match the size or nature of the difference.
"The number of tourists plummeted from 6 million to 5.5 million."
"The number of tourists dipped slightly from 6 million to 5.5 million."
"Plummeted" means a sudden, dramatic drop. A 0.5 million decrease is not dramatic. The examiner notices this immediately — it signals that the student is using memorised vocabulary rather than reading the data.
"Turkey had slightly more tourists than Nigeria."
"Turkey far exceeded Nigeria, attracting roughly 25 times as many visitors."
"Slightly more" means a small difference. When one country has 39 million and the other has 1.5 million, that is not slight. Match the word to the scale of the gap — not to how simple you want the sentence to be.
"Turkey had more than Iran. South Korea had more than Brazil. Brazil had more than Nigeria."
"Turkey led the chart, followed by South Korea which recorded a considerably higher figure than Brazil and Nigeria."
Repeating the same comparison phrase is a Lexical Resource penalty. It tells the examiner you only have one way to compare values. Use different structures for different comparisons.
Tense — follow the data, not a rule
Bar charts come in two main forms: those showing a single time point and those comparing across time. The tense you use depends entirely on what the chart shows.
Read the chart dates before you write. If the data is from past years (2015 and 2019, for example), past simple is the right choice for describing the values. If the chart has no specific dates and presents a general snapshot, present simple works. Consistency within your report matters more than choosing one "correct" tense.
Bar chart vocabulary is different from line graph vocabulary. With line graphs, you describe shapes — rises, falls, plateaus. With bar charts, you describe relationships — rankings, proportions, gaps, and differences. The biggest mistake I see is students using line graph words on bar chart data. "The figure for Turkey fluctuated" makes no sense when you are comparing two static bars. Read the chart type first, then choose your words.