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A contrast between X and Y
There was a stark contrast between the two teams.
In contrast to somebody/something
In contrast to the UK, Germany had the highest number of medals in
2010.
53% of the population in Korea was 50+ years old, in contrast to 23%
of the teenage population.
On the other hand
Brazil had a slight reduction in the production of energy. On the other
hand, the figure for Russia went up drastically.
However
Korea had an enormous rise in the number of post-graduate students;
however, Japan experienced a slight reduction of 5% in this regard.
While/whereas
The figure rose to 43% in 2005 while it went down noticeably to 32%
two years later.
At the beginning of the period, the trend had fluctuations, whereas it

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stabilized later on.
Unlike
Unlike the trend for Brazil, the trend for Portugal had an unexpected
fall.
Note that the phrase “
On the contrary
” does not have extensive
usage in writing task 1 as it is useful while expressing opposite
opinions. Therefore, it does not describe numbers as they
cannot be the opposite, even if they are quite different.
For example
she loves sweet snacks like ice cream. On the contrary, her friend
prefers 
savory 
snacks 
like 
potato 
chips. 
(different
opinions/preferences)
the annual gross income for Switzerland accounted for 853$ million.
In contrast, this figure for Italy had a dramatic decline to 11$ million
in 2008. (markedly different numbers, but not opposite)
Tenses in task 1
In writing task 1, it is quite common to use the 
simple past 
tense; however,
using the tenses depends on the given periods. When trends are generally or
annually shown,
present simple 
tense is best to use. In contrast, simple past
tense should be the dominant tense if the period is related to the past.
Sometimes, a graph shows a projection of the 
future,
and in this case, it is
better to use 
neutral future tenses 
as we are just referring to predictions based
on statistics. In other words, it is better to avoid depending heavily on “will’,
which accounts for around 70% chance of happening or “going to,” which
implies the probability of around 90%. In writing task 1, we may need to
point at predictions, which do not stand at higher than 50% chance of
happening, so it is better to use future passive structures, such as “It is likely
to,” “It is predicted to,” “It is expected to,” “It is projected to,” etc. instead of
“will” or “going to” in these cases. 
Present perfect 
or 
past perfect 
tenses are
also occasionally useful in describing trends.

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