Jakarta is located on the northwest coast of Java Island, at the mouth of the Ciliwung river. It dominates Indonesian’s administrative, economy, cultural activities, and is a major commercial and transportation hub within Asia.

The climate is hot and humid. Rainfall occurs throughout the year. The heaviest rainfall is from November to May. The city lies on a flat, low plain and is likely to be affected by flood during period of heavy rainfall.

The short monologue above is the audio file of listening section test for National Examination 2008. The monologue is followed by a multiple choice question at listening section number 13 as bellow:

13. Why is Jakarta at risk of flooding?
A. It lies on high land.
B. It is densely populated.
C. It lies on a flat low plain area.
D. The climate is hot and humid.
E. It is at the mouth of the Ciliwung River.

Commonly a descriptive text will describe a particular thing, place, or someone. A descriptive text is structured with general identification and followed by detail description. In Identification paragraph, descriptive text will explore to answer the question of who, what when and where. The detail description will include a description to answer how it looks, where it is sees, what it does, and what it make it special.

I have a short post discussing the differences between report and descriptive text. However some comments are still intentionally proposed to ask what is report text, what is descriptive text and how they differ from each other. I believe they are good to build the better understanding about the variety of text types which this blog has been concerning since it published it first post years ago. The comments which are given in responses for some example of particular text types really attract me, especially who make note whether some texts given as the example belong to report or descriptive. As stated in the previous posts, both descriptive and report present the caught picture of some thing for other. Both descriptive and report text functionally describe things, what and how they are.
Due to some comments in this blog, I have browsed to find more vivid definition what descriptive and report texts are. Bellow are the sources which hopefully give more understanding of report and descriptive text and what the easy way to differ them:
lessonplanspage.com explains that Information Report is classifying and describing general classes of phenomena. While Factual Description is describing a particular living, non-living or natural phenomenon.
portals.aisnsw.edu.au has more complex explanation. Descriptive reports give information about something; they describe what something is or does. They characteristically use technical terms and present tense, and they build technicality through noun groups. The structure of a descriptive report is General statement followed by Description.
awesome-reviews.info clearly states that If the thing which is mentioned in the text is clear about its name. We can make it sure as Descriptive text. But if the thing which is described in the text just the representative of the whole group of the thing mentioned, we can judge it as Report Text.
So what is the easy way to differ report form descriptive text? Well there is not easiest way to see the difference between report and descriptive text since a text is possibly built from several types of text. Frequently, a text is combined from several genres. However taking a look at the participant of the text is very helpful to define whether the text belongs to report or descriptive. The particularity of the participant is a key to see the difference between report and descriptive.

One of the most famous women in world history was Cleopatra VII. She was the brilliant and beautiful last Pharaoh of Egypt. Historically, she became queen of Egypt in 51 B.C. at the age of eighteen. She was a Ptolemy, descended from one of Alexander the Great's generals. When she was twenty-one, Julius Caesar became her lover. Seven years later she met Antony. The romantic tragic relationship continued until they died by suicide in 30 B.C.

Moon is the earth's satellite which we often see in the night. The Moon is the one place in our solar system where humans have visited. For the firs time on July 20, 1969, astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landed the Lunar Module of Apollo 11 on the surface of the Moon. Neil Armstrong was the first man to walk on the Moon. However do you know what descriptive facts about the Moon are?

The moon rises in the east and sets in the west. It moves toward the east in our sky by about 12 degrees each day. The Moon is about 384,400 kilometers from Earth. The Moon has a diameter of 2,000 miles which is like to 3,476 kilometers.

The surface of the Moon has many things, such as craters, lava plains, mountains, and valleys. Scientists believe the craters were formed around 3.5 to 4.5 billion years ago by meteors hitting the moon's surface. The Moon does not have atmosphere, wind and weather that is why the footprints left there on the Moon by the Apollo astronauts will remain there for millions of years.

The Moon is not a light source. It mean that Moon does not make its own light. It reflects light from the sun. All of us can can see the Moon especially in the night because light from the Sun bounces off it back to the Earth. If the Sun wasn't there, we can not see the Moon.

The moon influences many of the tides in the oceans. This is because of the gravity force between the Earth and Moon. At full Moon and new Moon, the Sun, Earth and Moon are lined up, producing the higher than normal tides. When the Moon is at first or last quarter, it forms smaller neap tides.

This example of descriptive text about the moon facts is arranged from nasa.gov and kent.sch.uk

What is a descriptive text? I think it is important to recall before we go further about this example of descriptive text. The way descriptive text composed is similar to report text. Both try more to show less than tell. However descriptive text tends to specify the described object while report text will describe the object in general. The goal of the descriptive text is transferring the experience of the writers. The experience can be what they see, read, or feel. Descriptive text commonly tries to reveal the image of certain person, place, animal, or thing. Bellow is the best example of descriptive text I find. This descriptive passage which focuses on the cat's habit and less physical appearance is written by Barbara Carter. Read the sample bellow, you will see the clear understanding about descriptive text.

Learning text types is presented as the main subject in English lesson for high school students. Most of the time during their time in high school, the students focus their attention to text types with each generic structure and what language used to construct the texts varying to each other. That generic structure and language features which are commonly found different from one text to another is used based on the purpose of each genres.

Text types in the three main genres which must be studied in high school specially designed for graduate competences standard (SKL) are:
NARRATION
This narrative genre includes narrative, recount, and news item. All these text types in narrative genres composed to tell and inform.
DESCRIPTION
The texts which include in descriptive genres are report, descriptive, and explanation. These text genres are written to describe. They tend to use words with describing sense and not telling
ARGUMENTATION
Argumentative genres will cover analytical exposition, hortatory exposition and discussion. These text types explore reason to answer the question "why" and "how".

To enlarge our knowledge, texts are defined into three main genres which slightly different from the above classification referring to the high school graduate competences standard. According to nationalstrategies, the tree main genres which show the text types distinctions are as follow:
1. NARRATIVE which includes adventure, mystery, science fiction, fantasy, historical fiction, contemporary fiction, dilemma stories, dialogue, myths, legends, fairy tales, and fables.
2. NON-FICTION which accommodates discussion texts, explanatory texts, instructional text, persuasion texts, non-chronological reports and recounts.
3. POETRY which refers to free verse, visual poems and structured poems.

I have a close Friend. She is beautiful, attractive and trendy. She always want to be a trend setter of the day. She always pays much attention on her appearance. Recently, she bought a new stylist foot legs from blowfish shoes products. This shoes really matches on her.

Her new blowfish women's shoes are wonderful. When she are walking on that shoes, all her friends, including me watch and admire that she has the most suitable shoes on her physical appearance. The style, bright color, and brand represent her as a smart woman of the day. She really have perfect appearance.

She is really mad on that shoes. She said that the products covered all genders. The blowfish men's shoes are as elegant as she has. The products provide varieties of choice. Ballet, casual, boot athletic shoes are designed in attractive way. The products are international trader mark and become the hottest trend.

Borobudur is Hindu - Budhist temple. It was build in the nineth century under Sailendra dynasty of ancient Mataram kingdom. Borobudur is located in Magelang, Central Java, Indonesia.
Borobudur is well-known all over the world. Its construction is influenced by the Gupta architecture of India. The temple is constructed on a hill 46 m high and consist of eight step like stone terrace. The first five terrace are square and surrounded by walls adorned with Budist sculpture in bas-relief. The upper three are circular. Each of them is with a circle of bell shape-stupa. The entire adifice is crowned by a large stupa at the centre at the centre of the top circle. The way to the summit extends through some 4.8 km of passage and starways. The design of borobudur which symbolizes the structure of universe influences temples at Angkor, Cambodia.
Borobudur temple which is rededicated as an Indonesian monument in 1983 is a valuable treasure for Indonesian people.

Analyzing the Text
Generic Structure Analysis
Identification; identifying the phenomenon to be described in general; Borobudur temple
Description; describing the Borobudur temple in parts; eight terraces of Borobudur temple and its characteristics
Language Feature Analysis
Using adjective and classifiers; valuable
Using simple present tense; Borobudur is well-known,The temple is constructed, etc