F


Identifying a new skill (3)


1. Study the three sentences. What do they have in common? a. Sales at Acme are rising at the moment. b. Sales at Acme rose last year. c. Sales at Acme have risen in the last three years.


2. What is the tense of each verb? What is the effect of changing the tense?


3. Read Skills Check 3 and check your ideas. G


Describing a graph 1. Complete the sales report with the present perfect or past simple of each verb.


Sales report May 31st


Bellport Goods Ltd has not had a very good start to the year. In the last five months, sales to Britain (rise) from 139 to 172 per month. However, sales to the EU


have risen


January. In the first month of the year, 151 units (sell) 115. Sales to the rest of the world Overall, the company


(drop) to 452. 2. Cover the text above. Write a paragraph from the information in Figure 1.


180 170 160 150 140 130 120 110 100


Britain EU


rest of the world also (sell) 465 units in January, but monthly sales


(sell), whereas last month we only (go down) slightly this year. now


(fall) sharply since


Skills Check 3 Describing trends


We use the present continuous to describe trends, i.e., changes over a period of time. A trend: • started in the past. • is happening now. • will probably continue into the future. Example: Sales at Acme Ltd are rising at the moment. I’m getting better marks in English now. My written English is improving.


Remember! We use: • the past simple to talk about complete events/situations. • the present perfect to talk about events/situations up to the present.


[See Grammar reference p.183.]


Jan


139 151


Feb Mar Apr May 146 135


157 169 126 117


Figure 1: Bellport Goods Ltd – unit sales H Writing about general trends


Choose five of the topics below. Write sentences about the trends in your country or in the world. unemployment prices population sea level


raw materials crime medicine


temperature CO2 agriculture


energy resources science


172 115


175 172 171 169 165 Vocabulary box


attractive (adj) construction (n) fall/fell/fallen (v) project (n) purpose (n) rise/rose/risen (v) trend (n) whereas (conj)


Theme 3:Writing 97


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