The two diagrams show students’ responses to the question of how good they are at managing their finances. The pie chart illustrates the ability of UK students to manage their finances and the table shows the proportion of students, by age, who think they are very organised at managing their finances.

More than three-quarters of students (76%) believe they are either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ organised financially, while one in five (20%) say they are not very organised in this area. Only 4% of students rate themselves as ‘not at all’ competent.

The ability to manage one’s finances well would seem to develop with age and experience as older students are almost twice as likely to say they are ‘very’ organised than younger ones (31% of students aged 26 or over compared to just 17% for those aged up to 22).

Overall, the findings suggest that students generally manage their finances well.

(151 words)

The two diagrams show students’ responses to the question of how good they are at managing their finances. The pie chart illustrates the ability of UK students to manage their finances and the table shows the proportion of students, by age, who think they are very organised at managing their finances.

More than three-quarters of students (76%) believe they are either ‘very’ or ‘fairly’ organised financially, while one in five (20%) say they are not very organised in this area. Only 4% of students rate themselves as ‘not at all’ competent.

The ability to manage one’s finances well would seem to develop with age and experience as older students are almost twice as likely to say they are ‘very’ organised than younger ones (31% of students aged 26 or over compared to just 17% for those aged up to 22).

Overall, the findings suggest that students generally manage their finances well.

(151 words)

The table shows the reason why people in Edmonton use their cars in the city and the pie chart explains what type of transport people prefer to use most of the time.

Looking at the pie chart first, it is clear that the car is the most popular means of transport in this city. 45% of the people say that they prefer to commute by car. The second most popular form of transport is the LRT, while busses and taxis are the main means of transport for the rest of the people.

The table gives more detailed information about why people use their cars. Surprisingly, 55% of the people need to commute to work by car. Cars are also used a lot for taking children to school or business purposes. Only 15% of drivers are doing their shopping and, similarly, 15% need to travel by car for leisure.

Overall, people in Edmonton make good use of alternative methods of transport but there is a heavy dependence on cars for work.

(170 words)

The charts show how much local authorities spent on a range of services in Someland in three separate years: 1980, 1990 and 2000.

In all three years, the greatest expenditure was on education. But while K-12 education saw a fall from 25% in 1980 to only 18% of spending in 2000, higher education remained the largest proportion, reaching 45% of total spending in 1990 and ending at 40% in 2000.

Expenditure on health and human resources had increased to 20% by 1990 before decreasing to only 10% by the end of the period. In contrast, the share of transportation saw an opposite trend. This cost decreased to only 6% of total expenditure in 1990 but rose dramatically in 2000 when it represented 22% of the total budget. Similarly, the cost of environmental services saw a rising trend, growing from only 4% to 9% by 2000.

Overall, higher education constituted the largest cost to local authorities, and while spending increased for transportation and environmental services, there were corresponding drops in expenditure on health and human resources and K-12 education.

(178 words)

The two pie charts compare the percentages of online sales across different retail sectors in Canada in the years 2005 and 2010. For three of the sectors, it is evident that over this time frame there was significant change in their proportion of online transactions.

At 35% we can see that electronics and appliance sector accounted for the majority of online sales in 2005, but this percentage had dropped to 30% by 2010. During the same five-year period, as an increasing number of people chose to purchase food and beverage online, we can see that transactions went from just 22% to 32%, making it the retail sector with the largest overall proportion of the online market.

In 2005, the home furnishing industry boasted an impressive 25% of the total online sales in Canada. However, by 2010, the figure had fallen considerably to 15%. Interestingly, online sales of video games eventually overtook sales of home furnishings, although video games still represented only 23% of the market.

(165 words)

The charts provide information on the proportion of males and females in employment in 6 broad categories, divided into manual and non-manual occupations. In general, a greater percentage of women work in non-manual occupations than work in manual occupations, and the reverse is true for men.

In the non-manual occupations, while a greater percentage of working women than men are found in clerical-type positions, there is a smaller percentage of women than men employed in managerial and professional positions. The percentage of women employed in other non-manual occupations is slightly larger than the percentage of men in these occupations.

In manual employment, the biggest difference between the two sexes is in the employment of craft workers, where males make up 24% of the workforce and females just 3%. Furthermore, the percentage of women working as general working as general labourers is very small, only 1%. There is not a great deal of difference between the percentage of men doing other forms of manual work (26%) and women in other manual work (27%).

In summary, the two charts clearly show that women do not have the same access as men to certain types of employment.

(194 words)

The pie charts show the proportion of money spent on various household expenses in Malaysia and Japan in 2010.

We can see that in Malaysia the greatest proportion of expenditure (34%) was on housing, while in Japan housing accounted for just 21% of the total. In contrast, in Japan the greatest single expense was other goods and services at 29%, compared with 26% in Malaysia. Food came in second place in Japan, at 24%, while in Malaysia the actual proportion was higher (27%). In Japan another major expense was transport, at 20%, but this was much lower In Malaysia (10%). In both countries the smallest percentage of expenditure was on health care.

Overall, the data indicates that in both cases food, housing and other goods and services were the main expenses, but that in Japan, transport and other goods and services took up a higher proportion of total expenditure than in Malaysia.

(152 Words)

There are several similarities between what younger and older people say makes them most happy. However, there are several striking differences.

Firstly, let us look at the similarities. It is noticeable that for both younger and older people, the highest percentage says that achievement at work brings them most happiness: 31% for the younger age group and 32% for the older group. Doing hobbies is also very important for both groups: the second largest percentage of both age groups mention doing hobbies as making them most happy.

Turning now to the differences, many younger people regard having a good appearance as extremely important: 18% of them state this brings them most happiness. This is followed by 15% who state that travel brings them happiness. Neither of these two factors is mentioned by older people. Instead, 20% of older people report that having financial security is most important to their happiness and 14% say they feel most happy when they are with their family.

(163 words)

The pie chart shows that there are four main causes of farmland becoming degraded in the world today. Globally, 65% of degradation is caused by too much animal grazing and tree clearance, constituting 35% and 30% respectively. A further 28% of global degradation is due to over-cultivation of crops. Other causes account for only 7% collectively.

These causes affected different regions differently in the 1990s, with Europe having as much as 9.8% of degradation due to deforestation, while the impact of this on Oceania and North America was minimal, with only 1.7% and 0.2% of land affected respectively. Europe, with the highest overall percentage of land degraded (23%), also suffered from over-cultivation (7.7%) and over-grazing (5.5%). In contrast, Oceania had 13% of degraded farmland and this was mainly due to over-grazing (11.3%). North America had a lower proportion of degraded land at only 5%, and the main causes of this were over-cultivation (3.3%) and, to a lesser extent, over-grazing (1.5%).

Overall, it is clear that Europe suffered more from farmland degradation than the other regions and the main causes there were deforestation and over-cultivation.

(184 words)

The first chart shows the reasons why some people in the UK prefer to cycle to work. Conversely, the second chart gives reasons for those who choose to go to work by car.

The highest percentage of those who favour cycling say that this is because riding a bicycle to work is healthier than driving. 30% of them gave this as a reason. The same amount of people, 30% say that they cycle to work because it causes less pollution. 13% of people cycle to work because it is cheaper than driving. Surprisingly, a similar amount of people said that they cycled to work because it is faster than travelling by car.

In contrast to this, the percentage who prefer to travel by car because it is more comfortable is 40%. The two least important reasons for going to work by car, with 14% and 11% respectively, is that people need to carry things to work and that it is safer than cycling to work. Finally, 16% say they prefer driving because it is faster than cycling. This contrasts with the cyclists who ride to work because it is faster than driving.

In general, it seems that the majority of people who cycle to work do this for health and environmental reasons. By contrast, those who travel by car want to have a more comfortable journey over longer distances.

(229 words)