Prepositions for time and data

Prepositions are words which connect nouns or pronouns to other words within a sentence. They are usually short words, such as on, at, by, in, to and of. Unfortunately, preposition errors are particularly common in IELTS Task One essays.

Read the example sentences from a detail paragraph below. There are several mistakes involving prepositions. Can you find them all?

Since 2016, just under nine million imported cars were sold but in 2019 imported car sales had fallen by slightly more than two million. At 2022, imported car sales are expected to undergo a sharp rise to approximately six million at between 8 and 8.5 million cars sold. 

Preposition errors are very noticeable to examiners. Pay special attention to prepositions following nouns and verbs describing changes in values, as well as those used to describe time periods. 

The diagram below shows common situations in which prepositions are used in trend diagrams when describing changes in values. 

PREPOSITION	USAGE	EXAMPLE
OF	NOUN + AMOUNT + CATEGORY	…a rise of 100 incidents
IN	(AMOUNT) + NOUN + CATEGORY	…a (10%) rise in incidents
BY	VERB + AMOUNT	…will rise by 100
TO	VERB (DURATION) + POINT	…rose to exactly 100
AT	VERB (MOMENT) + POINT	…started at exactly 50
OF	PERCENTAGE + CATEGORY	…20% of incidents

The table below provides information about the usage of prepositions when describing time periods. 

Using this information, the previous example can be corrected.

Since 2016, just under nine million imported cars were sold but by 2019 imported car sales had fallen to slightly more than two million. By 2022, imported car sales are expected to have undergone a sharp rise of approximately six million to between 8 and 8.5 million cars sold.

Prepositions are tricky, so use the provided tables to correct the essays you write when practicing IELTS Task One. Self-correction will help you to identify and change your errors so that in future essays you will make the correct choices.  

EXERCISE

Choose the correct prepositions used to describe the line graph provided.

Applications for biology started in/at around fifty thousand by/in 2008 and despite some minor fluctuations remained stable to/at this level until 2018, never rising by/at more than four or five thousand applicants. Even though there was a minor fall of/in applicants from 2015 to 2016, the number of applications submitted for physics rose considerably from just under thirty thousand to/at in excess of fifty, surpassing biology to become the highest figures in 2018. The result was an overall rise in/of science applications. 

Turning to language subjects, due to a rise by/of roughly twenty-five thousand applications for English, total language applicants increased significantly at/by around 25 thousand in the first five years. However, in the second half of the period both English and Chinese nosedived at/by approximately twenty and thirty thousand respectively, meaning that at/by 2018 total figures for language subjects had declined significantly. 
 

ANSWERS

1

Applications for biology started at around fifty thousand in 2008 and despite some minor fluctuations remained stable at this level until 2018, never rising by more than four or five thousand applicants. Even though there was a minor fall in applicants from 2015 to 2016, the number of applications submitted for physics rose considerably from just under thirty thousand to in excess of fifty, surpassing biology to become the highest figures in 2018. The result was an overall rise in science applications.  Turning to language subjects, due to a rise of roughly twenty-five thousand applications for English, total language applicants increased significantly by around 25 thousand in the first five years. However, in the second half of the period both English and Chinese nosedived by approximately twenty and thirty thousand respectively, meaning that by 2018 total figures for language subjects had declined significantly.