A pie chart has one job
A pie chart is a circle cut into slices. Each slice is a part of the whole, shown as a percentage, and all the slices add up to 100. That is the whole idea. So your report has one job too: describe the PROPORTIONS. How big is each slice compared to the others? Which is the biggest, which is the smallest? You are not tracking a trend over time (that is a line graph). You are showing how one whole is divided up.
What to describe in a pie chart
✓The biggest slice and the smallest slice. Start here, always.
✓The proportions, in words: a quarter, a third, roughly half, the majority.
✓Slices that are close in size, grouped together ('these three were about equal').
✓The small slices as a GROUP, not one by one ('the rest made up under 10% each').
✓For two pies: how the shares CHANGED (which grew, which shrank).
9 phrases that make a pie chart easy
1make up
To form a part of the whole. A simple way to say what a slice is.
Example: Cars made up the largest share of the total, at 40%.
2account for
To be a certain part of the whole. Same idea as 'make up', a little more formal.
Example: Renewable energy accounted for roughly one fifth of the power used.
3the majority of
More than half of the whole. Use it for the big slice.
Example: The majority of students chose science, while the rest were spread across other subjects.
4a quarter
25% (one part in four). A clean fraction is easier to read than '25%'.
Example: Reading took up a quarter of the children's free time.
5a third
About 33% (one part in three).
Example: Almost a third of the budget went on housing.
6more than half
Over 50%. A clear, simple way to describe a large slice.
Example: More than half of the visitors came from Europe.
7roughly
About, not exact. Perfect for rounding a slice to a clean number.
Example: Sport and music together made up roughly 50% of the total.
8just under / just over
A little less than / a little more than a number. Great for slices near a round figure.
Example: Coffee accounted for just under 30% of all drinks sold.
9whereas
A joining word to compare two slices in one sentence.
Example: Fruit made up a third of the diet, whereas sweets accounted for only a tenth.
Weak vs strong pie-chart sentences
Listing every slice one by one
✕Sport was 25%. Music was 24%. Reading was 23%. Art was 15%. Games were 13%.
✓Sport, music, and reading were the three most popular activities, each making up around a quarter of the total, whereas art and games together accounted for under a third.
Listing every slice as a bare number is the biggest pie-chart mistake. Grouping the similar slices and the small ones shows the examiner you can select and compare, which is what Task Achievement rewards.
A bare percentage, no proportion word
✕The largest category was food, at 48%.
✓Food made up nearly half of all spending, the largest single share.
'48%' is fine, but 'nearly half' is easier to picture and shows better vocabulary. Turn round-ish numbers into proportion words: a quarter, a third, roughly half, the majority.
Two pies described separately
✕In 2000, cars were 60% and buses 40%. In 2020, cars were 45% and buses 55%.
✓Between 2000 and 2020, the share taken by cars fell from around three fifths to under half, whereas buses rose to become the majority.
With two pies, do not describe each one in turn. Compare them. Say which shares grew and which shrank over the period, in one sentence where you can.
Read next
Keep going with the series: how to describe a bar chart and how to write a strong overview.
Check your pie-chart report in seconds
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