Describing graphs, trends, and changes

For each trend there are a number of verbs and nouns to express the movement.

Going up

Verbs: to advance, to climb, to increase, to rise, to grow, to gain ground, to head north, to improve, to go up Nouns: an advance, an increase, a rise, a growth, a climb, a hike, an upturn

Going down

Verbs: to decline, to drop, to fall, to head south, to lose ground, to retreat, to slide, to go down.

Nouns: a decline, a drop, a fall, a retreat, a slide, a downturn

These words used to talk of an upward or downward trend do not in themselves indicate by how much the index have gone up or down.

Going up by small or moderate amount:

Verbs: to edge ahead, to edge higher, to edge up, to firm

Going down by small or moderate amounts

Verbs: to dip, to drift (lower), to ease, to edge down, to edge lower, to slip (lower)

Nouns: a dip, a drift, a slip

Going up by large amounts

Verbs: to jump, to leap, to roar ahead, to roar up, to rocket, to shoot ahead, to shoot up, to skyrocket, to soar, to surge (ahead)

Nouns: a jump, a leap, a surge

Going down by large amounts

Verbs: to dive, to nosedive, to plunge, to plummet, to tumble

Nouns: a dive, a nosedive, a plunge, a tumble

Going down fast by very large amounts

Verbs: to collapse, to crash, to crumble, to slump

Nouns: a crash, a collapse, a slump

No change

to remain stable, to level off, to stay at the same level, to remain constant, to stagnate, to stabilize, to remain steady

Change of direction

to peak, to reach a peak, to top out, to reach a low point, to bottom out, to recover, to rebound, to revive.

Prepositions:

To rise from $1m to $3; to increase by/zero preposition 45%; a decrease of 10%; to fall by/zero preposition 30%; to fall from $4m to $1m

The amount of increase can also be indicated using these verbs:

To halve, to double, to triple, to quadruple, to increase fivefold

Adjectives and adverbs

a dramatic fall	to fall dramatically	существенный (но)
an abrupt rise	to rise abruptly	резкий (о)
a sudden decline	to decline suddenly	внезапный (о)
a moderate growth	to grow moderately	умеренный (о)
a slight increase	to increase slightly	незначительный (о)
a rapid drop	to drop rapidly	стремительный (о)
a gradual decline	to decline gradually	постепенный (о)
a steady recovery	to recover steadily	устойчивый (о)
erratic fluctuation	to fluctuate erratically	хаотичный (о)
a constant leveling off	to level off constantly	непрерывный (о)
a marginal pick-up	to pick up marginally	несущественный (о)
a marked fall	to fall markedly	заметный (о)
a fractional increase	to increase fractionally	незначительный (о)

Fill in the gaps with appropriate words. Explain your choice.

1. Car sales in India ………… to its lowest in nine months in July at 1.43 units as high interest rates and petrol prices further impacted the already weak consumer sentiments.

skyrocketed slumped surged

2. Total car production……………5% because of lower sales in the US, where all European countries are struggling with weak demand.

shot ahead slid increased

3. Industrial output grew by 25.6% in 1992 over the previous year, as China’s total economy………….. by more than 12%.

slid edged up shot ahead

4. . American manufacturing employment ………. in 1979 and has been generally falling since.

advanced peaked soared

5. New orders ………7 per cent in April, and for that month and March combined stood 8.5% higher in volume terms than a year earlier.

plummeted slipped jumped

6. Sales held steady, profits ………….from $29.7 million to $12.1 million.

drifted lower crumbled leapt

7. Farm prices………….0.7% from September as raw milk prices continued their rise.

edged up rocketed surged

8. In the first eight months of the year exports to Germany …………….by 15% and hit the record, while those to France were up only 5%.

fell drifted lower soared

9. Stocks and bonds …………..as trading activity remained sluggish.

roared ahead edged lower leapt

10. Forte’s shares were among the week’s best performers,………….20p to 309p.

Jumping plummeting tumbling

Exercise № 13.

Translate the following sentences into Russian, paying special attention to the words in italics.

all time high – наивысшее значение за весь период наблюдений, исторический максимум

ant. all-time low

record high – абсолютный максимум, рекордно высокое значение

year’s low – самый низкий показатель за год

1. Historically, from 1914 until 2012, the United States inflation rate averaged 3.36% reaching an all time high of 23.7% in June of 1920 and a record low of -15.8% in June of 1921.

2. Foreign investment by U.S. businesses and investors is on track to be the second highest on record.

3. Having touched a 20-year low in 2006, this year sales fell every month until October.

4. Manufacturing output has already declined at a 2.2% annual rate in the fourth quarter, the largest quarterly drop since the 2001 recession.

5. Since January, exports to Asia have accounted for almost half of total shipments, and in the three months through July, the growth rate for shipments of all goods, adjusted for inflation, accelerated to a 30% annual rate.

6. The figures also showed that input prices – the cost of raw materials bought by industry – rose 1.8% on the month to stand 15.4% up on a year ago, the second biggest increase on record.

7. Singapore's economy slowed sharply from the third quarter. Growth fell by 3.2 per cent on an annualised, seasonally adjusted basis, the first contraction in four and a half years.

8. The main cause of the problem has been steadily weakening prices, which are at about 20-year lows.

9. In the US, companies are generally quicker to shed jobs, the rate reached 9.8% in September, a 26-year high and up by around four percentage points since mid-2008.

10. In Germany and Britain, the forecast suggests a marked fall in output, year on year.

11. According to WSD’s (World Steel Dynamics) calculations, steel consumption in the US will pick up only marginally to 125m tones, from this year’s expected 122,8m tones.

12. Last month exports were $1.64bn, fractionally down on the same month in 1984.

13. In fact, corporate profits are now at a peak in dollar terms and close to an all-time high as a percentage of GDP.

14. Japan’s production of crude steel (нерафинированной стали) rose dramatically in April to 8.830 million metric tons, up 15% from a year earlier and 5% from March.

15. The latest figures reflected only the normal seasonal improvement in the labour market and gave no sign that the present modest upswing in the economy was creating new jobs.

16. The rise in manufacturer’s buying prices is also uncomfortably high in comparison with the domestic inflation rate, which was 4.6 per cent in the year to December and is projected by Treasury (Министерство Финансов) to remain at about that level this year.