Academic Writing - Model Answer (Task 1)

The pie chart show government spending on the arts in 1995 and 2005 and the bar chart shows the number of participants in these two time periods.

In 1995, the government spent about half of its arts budget on music, approximately a quarter on visual arts, less than a quarter on the theatre and the smallest proportion on literature. Ten years later it spent equal amounts on the theatre and music (around 40%) and equal amounts on visual arts and literature.

The number of people participating in visual arts in 1995 and 2005 were around 50,000 whilst for literature there was considerably less participation (about half of this ). Over the ten year period theatre participation remained relatively stable, between 80.000 - 90.000. Music was popular with 120,000 participants in 1995 and 30.000 more in 2005.

We can see that the government favoured spending money on music in both years and participation levels were highest for this art form. In contrast, very little was spent on literature resulting in lower participation numbers.

Question taken from Achieve IELTS p.61