The Evidence Strength Ladder
The same chart, described five ways. Only four of them are honest.
Click to zoom
Same chart, five claims. Only four of them are defensible.
Pick a verb whose strength matches the evidence, instead of writing show every time.
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Why show is the weakest word in your Task 1 vocabulary, and the eight verbs that replace it.
A Band 6 script uses show for everything. The chart shows. The graph shows. The evidence shows. The grammar is correct every time, and that is exactly the problem — the examiner sees a candidate who has one verb where the language has eight.
Each of these verbs makes a different size of claim. Choosing between them is not decoration. It is precision, and precision is what the Band 7 descriptor asks for.
The same chart, described five ways. Only four of them are honest.
Same chart, five claims. Only four of them are defensible.
Match each verb to the size of claim it makes.
Terms
Definitions
Work through three expert decisions: pick the verb, then say why the other one over-claims.
Chain 1
The evidence: a graph showing that screen time and reported anxiety both rose over the same decade.
Candidates: demonstrates / suggests
The expert chooses:
Because:
Chain 2
The evidence: a controlled study in which one group received the training and a matched group did not, with a clear difference in outcome.
Candidates: indicates / demonstrates
The expert chooses:
Because:
Chain 3
The evidence: a second, larger study reaching the same finding as an earlier one that had been disputed.
Candidates: reveals / confirms
The expert chooses:
Because:
Six exam-style sentences. The evidence given allows exactly one verb each.
Task 1
The chart that car ownership rose steadily between 1990 and 2010, while bicycle use fell over the same period.
A closer reading of the second graph a pattern the overview misses: the decline reversed sharply after 2008.
The table the gap between the two countries most clearly in the final year, where the difference reaches thirty per cent.
Task 2
The fact that literacy rates rose alongside television ownership a connection, though it cannot establish one.
Singapore's housing programme how sustained public investment can change a city within a generation.
Three decades of controlled trials that early intervention improves outcomes for these children.
Write one sentence about real data and have it checked for collocation, claim strength and register.
Here is the evidence you have:
Between 2000 and 2020, the proportion of adults in a country who cycle to work rose from 4% to 11%. Over the same period, the number of protected cycle lanes in that country's cities increased fourfold.
Before you submit, check it yourself: is your verb claiming more than two things rising together can support?
One sentence. Use exactly one evidence verb.
Name it so you can check it against the feedback.