Prepositions for data, time and place

The Task 1 data set

These six patterns cover almost every sentence you will write about a chart.

• an increase / decrease / rise / fall IN something: 'a sharp rise in unemployment'.
• rise / fall TO a final value: 'sales rose to 40 million'.
• rise / fall BY the size of the change: 'sales rose by 10 million'.
• FROM a starting value TO an end value: 'from 20% to 35%'.
• BETWEEN two years AND: 'between 2001 and 2010'.
• AT a specific figure or peak: 'it peaked at 62%' and 'it stood at 12 million'.

Time prepositions

Three prepositions handle nearly all time reference, from largest span to smallest point.

• IN for years, months, seasons, centuries and parts of the day: in 2019, in July, in the morning.
• ON for days and dates: on Monday, on 14 March.
• AT for clock times and fixed points: at 9am, at night, at the weekend in British usage.
• DURING plus a noun, WHILE plus a clause: 'during the recession', 'while the recession lasted'.

Place and movement

The most common errors involve arriving somewhere and being inside institutions.

• arrive IN a country or city, arrive AT a building or event.
• live IN a country, live ON a street, live AT a full address.
• IN the north of the country, ON the coast, AT the border.

Verbs that take no preposition

These verbs are transitive in English even though their equivalents take a preposition in many other languages.

• discuss something, not discuss about something.
• emphasise something, not emphasise on something.
• affect something, not affect to something.
• enter a room, not enter into a room, except in the fixed phrase 'enter into an agreement'.
• reach a conclusion, not reach to a conclusion.

Corrected examples

Quick checklist

• Increase IN what changed, BY how much, TO the final figure.
• IN a year, ON a date, AT a time.
• Arrive IN a city, arrive AT a building.
• No preposition after discuss, emphasise, affect, reach or enter.