Exercise 4

Teenagers Favourite Leisure Time of Places in 1995 and 2015

The visuals present a bar graph on places where teenagers spend their
leisure in 1995 and 2015 and a table on features of places for leisure in 2015.
Generally, there was a correlation between the places where teenagers spend their
leisure in 2015 and features of the places for leisure in 2015.

In 2015, most of the teenagers (35%) spent their leisure in the indoor theme
park. This might be because indoor theme park was the most comfortable, exciting
and trendy leisure venue. Simultaneously, there was a similar trend in the same year,
where 24-hour caf became the second popular place among the teenagers to
spend their leisure (23%). The reason was that 24-hour caf provided a lot of
features, like comfort, wi-fi service, excitement and trendy to attract its customers. In
contrast, least of the teenagers (10%) spent their leisure at the beach in 2015, even
though it was the cheapest leisure venue to visit, as compared to other places.

In conclusion, the places where teenagers spent their leisure in 2015 were
affected by the features provided by the leisure venues.

(162 words)
 Exercise 6

Household Expenditure of a Young Executive in 2010 and 2015

The visuals present two pie charts on household expenditure of a young

executive in 2010 and 2015 and an excerpt on goals set for the years ahead. In
general, there was a correlation between the household expenditure of the young
executive and the goals set for the years ahead.

According to figure 1, there was a dramatic increase on the household

expenditure, where the young executive saved only 7% of his salary in 2010, but
decided to save 27% of his salary in 2015. This might be because he wished to own
a house and a car for the years ahead. In contrast, the distribution of food
expenditure had dropped significantly from 50% in 2010 to 40% in 2015. This was
because the executive had changed his dining habit to eating home-cooked food as
he wanted to keep obesity at bay. Last but not least, the other household
expenditure, like clothing had also faced a slight decrease, from 12% in 2010 to 8%
in 2015 as the executive had set a goal of wearing branded but affordable attire for
the years ahead.

In general, the household expenditure of the young executive was greatly

affected by his goals set for the years ahead.

(188 words)
 Exercise 11

The Enrolment of Three Colleges from 2000 to 2010 and Newspaper Headlines

The visuals depict a table on college enrolment from 2000 to 2010 and a
newspaper headlines. Generally, the newspaper headlines had brought a great
impact on the college enrolment of the three colleges from 2000 to 2010.

According to Table 1, Bright College had the highest percentage of

Cambridge A-Level enrolment at 82% in 2000, 100% in 2005 and 100% in 2010
respectively. The highest college enrolment might be linked to the news headlines of
Star Education in 2003, where it highlighted that 250 top Bright College students
admitted into Ivy League since 2005. Similarly, Bright College had a similar trend on
the Bachelors Degree enrolment, in which it recorded the highest percentage at 84%
in 2000, 92% in 2005 and 100% in 2010 respectively. This might be attributed to the
news headline of university college status for Bright, said the Minister of Education
since 2008. Simultaneously, Smart College recorded a consistent 5% rise in the
Cambridge A-Level enrolment from 63% (2000) to 68% (2005) until 73% (2010),
while Bachelors Degree enrolment showed a consistent rise of 6% from 60% (2000)
to 66% (2005) and 72% (2010). The rise might be due to the affordable tuition fees
since 2004. In contrast, Creative College had the lowest percentage of Cambridge A-
Level enrolment (55% in 2000, 55% in 2005, 53% in 2010) and Bachelors Degree
enrolment (46% in 2000, 52% in 2005, 51% in 2010) respectively. Despite its 20%
fees waiver, Creative College remained the lowest college enrolment over the three
years.

In conclusion, Smart College and Bright College enrolment were affected by

the appearance on the newspaper headlines. However, the news headlines failed to
make an impact on the college enrolment of Creative College.

(222 words)
 Exercise 17

House ownership and Reasons for Keeping the Houses

The visuals present a bar graph on house ownership and a table on reasons
for buying houses. Generally, there was a correlation between the house ownership
and the reasons for buying these houses.

According to figure 1, terrace house had the highest ownership rate among all
age groups of owners (15% for young adults, 20% for young married couples, 30%
for middle-aged couples and 23% for senior citizens), due to the reasons like pride,
freedom, investment, financial security and cost effective. In contrast, flat was
the most unpopular type of house among the owners (2% for young adults, 6% for
young married couples, 9% for middle-aged couples and 0% for senior citizens). This
was because flats had the least advantage of owning it, which was cost-effective as
compared to other types of houses. At the same time, the ownership of semi-
detached house and Bungalow were mostly popular only among the young married
and middle-aged couples. This might because only these groups of owners had the
highest financial power to own semi-detached houses and bungalow, which were
rather ineffective in terms of cost.

In conclusion, the house ownership among different age groups of owners

was greatly influenced by the reasons for keeping the houses.

(190 words)
 Competition is healthy. Do you agree with this statement?

Competition is something that everyone has in his or her life. When we are
young and still studying in school, we would compete with our classmates for better
grades. When we get older and get to work, we would compete with our colleagues
so to get a higher position with higher salary. Companies compete with each other to
get more customers and slowly expand their business. Countries compete with one
another for a better economy. Even animals compete with one another for survival
and mating. Therefore, competition is part and parcel in our everyday life. In my
opinion, I think that the existence of competition is necessary and healthy because it
enables us to prove our abilities and strengths, better improves ourselves from time
to time and causes good stress.

First and foremost, healthy competition provides us opportunities to prove our

abilities and strengths, so that we are recognized by the others in a certain field or
expertise. People compete with each other so as to win, and winning brings benefits
to the victors. For instance, the athletes compete with one another to gain a chance
in representing the country for international competition and the leaders of political
parties compete with one another to win in the election, in order to get a chance to
rule the country. The politicians have to normally debate with each other and try their
best to convince the public to vote for them and to make their views heard. Therefore,
by competing healthily with the others, we would be able to prove our strengths and
capabilities to the others.

Secondly, by competing healthily with the others, we can better improve our
skills and expertise from time to time. People not only compete with other people but
sometimes compete with themselves too. It is like a self-expectation kind of
challenge to us to become a better person. By doing this, we would not be as much
stress as the people who compete with the society. Instead, we learn to set our own
goals and work on our own pace. For instance, when we want to better refine
ourselves by trying on new sport like swimming; it is already a great achievement
when we have mastered the technique of floating on the pool, as compared to
yesterday where we have not known a single thing about swimming. It is unlikely that
we have to compete with other people who can learn swimming faster and better
than us. In all, healthy competitions will enable us to better improve our skills and
expertise from time to time.

Thirdly, competition definitely brings good stress to people. This type of stress
will enable people to strive to be better than their rivals. As we all know, stress drives
people to work harder and run the extra mile to improve and refine on our own
weaknesses. Without this sort of stress, people improve much slower, and end up
being left behind. Taking an example of the productivity in a work place, it is only by
putting a definite amount of stress on the workers; they will work hard and compete
with one another in order to please the superiors. As a result, the efficiency and
reputation of the company will be tip-top under the effect of healthy competitions
among the workers. Therefore, healthy competition with one other does bring good
stress to people.

In conclusion, I strongly agree that competition is healthy and brings a lot of

advantages among the competitors, such as proving ones own abilities and
strengths, improving on ones own weaknesses from time to time as well as bringing
good stress to people. As a result, it pushes the society and country to move forward
and not to lag behind the other countries.