IELTS Writing Task 1: easy verbs, difficult noun phrases

 One feature of many academic task 1 answers is this: the verbs that we use are often 'easy', but the noun phrases that we write are long and relatively difficult.

Look at the following examples from last week's answer:

Verbs are highlighted in green.
Noun phrases are highlighted in blue.

1. The total number of miles travelled by English people using all modes of transport increased significantly.
2. The figures for miles travelled by train, long distance bus, taxi and other modes also increased.
3. There was a fall in the average distances for three forms of transport, namely walking, bicycle and local bus.

We could represent these sentence structures like this:

1. x increased significantly.
2. x also increased.
3. There was a fall in x.

(x = noun / noun phrase)

Have a look at your own task 1 answers. Can you find some 'easy' verbs and long noun phrases?