The bar chart below give information about five countries spending habits of shopping on consumer goods in 2012. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
People in many countries are spending less time with their family.
What are the reasons, and effects of this?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
WRITING TASK 1
The chart compares the spending habits of shoppers in five European countries on six consumer products, namely console games, outdoor game accessories, cosmetics, books, toys and camera. Overall, more money was spent on the latter two than on any other product.
It can be observed that in Britain, the highest amount of money was spent on camera (more than 160 million pounds), while similar amounts were spent on console games and outdoor game accessories. The Austrian spent the second highest amount of money on the first three products while they stood last in the latter three. It is also revealed that Spanish spent more money on toys than on any other product (a bit less than £150 million), but they also paid a lot for camera. Finally, Belgian spent the least overall, having similar spending figures for all 6 products compared in the bar chart.
To sum up, the British were the biggest spenders in all six categories among the nations compared in the bar chart while the lowest spending levels were attributed to the residents of Belgium.
(178 words)
WRITING TASK 2
In many parts of the world nowadays, family members are spending less time together. My essay will outline a number of reasons for this trend and a number of its associated effects.
One of the main reasons is that adults are too occupied with their work and social relationships. In countries like Japan where people spend the major proportion of their life working, many adults tend to stay at work until late evening and hardly have enough time to have dinner or to watch TV with other family members. Meanwhile, young children in this day and age are under great pressure from study; and children typically in Asian countries usually spend 10 hours a day and 6 days a week at school, not to mention extra classes in the evening. The amount of everyday homework those children have to do is also excessive, and therefore they cannot think of anything else, let alone spending time with their parents.
There are several impacts from this trend, and they all tend to be detrimental. Firstly, young children who do not have time with their siblings or parents are often more vulnerable to social pressures, such as bullying, because they do not receive enough affection and encouragement from their family. In reality, those children may grow up with low self-esteem and sometimes depression. Secondly, family relationships will greatly suffer because it will become more difficult to bridge the generation gap between parents and children without family bonding time. This usually leads to conflicts and unhappiness.
In conclusion, people are having less and less time with family largely due to work and study pressures, and the impacts of this on both individuals and families are severe.
(282 words)
