IELTS (WRITING PART 2) Due to the emergence of social media, today’s society seems to be based on external appearance on a larger extent than it was in the past, and money plays an important role in it. Therefore, some people believe that money is a key-factor to measure success, while I personally believe that successful people are those who bring benefits to society. On the one side, people that contribute to society are able to benefit humanity in the long term. In order words, they are successful because they can create something that will be of value in the future and will allow us or future generations to live more and better. In this case not only do scientists play an important role but also teachers. The former because their discoveries in all the relevant fields (medicine, physics, chemistry) have been able to improve the standard of living all around the world and have allowed countries to constantly grow over the past decades. The latter because of their important role in shaping the scholars mind and therefore the future as well. On the one side, rich people are able to provide for the family, invest on education for the children, enjoy expensive holidays and this makes them successful. This point can be easily agreed upon: rich people can bring benefits to their family, to the economy because of their expenses but also to society by being involved in charity for example. However, there are some downsides of this reasoning that need to be factored in. First, not all rich people make money in legal ways or without damaging someone else. Second, wealthy people are often greedy about the sharing of their resources. Finally, it is difficult to associate something so material as money with “success” which is a world more related to inner values. To sum up, despite rich people and people who benefit society being both really important for the present and the future, I would define just the latter as successful.

TASK 1 The pie graphs provide information about the expected output for services, energy, manufacturing, agriculture materials, and info-com tech on a world-level for the years 2040 and 2060. Overall, the world will not experience a dramatic change in production patterns; manufacturing and service industries will account for more than a half of the world’s output both in 2040 and 2060 and little are the differences with regard to the single sectors. Indeed, in the twenty-year period a small increase in production is expected in all sectors but energy and agriculture. Manufacturing is the sector that is expected to grow the most (2%), going from an initial value of 31% in 2040 up to 33% in 2060. Info-Com Tech and service industries will expand as well but just by 1%, reaching the level of 16% and 33%, respectively. A different pattern will be experienced by the energy and agriculture sectors. Energy will loose 2% and the production will go down from 7% to 2%. Similarly, projections for agricultural production show a declining trend, from 4% to only 1%.

IELTS TASK 2 Today’s society offers the possibility for many people, especially in the Western countries, to have a less active life compared with the past. With Covid-19 outbreak, we have witnessed how much we can do without getting up at all from the couch. While it is true that many forms of entertainment aimed especially at young people do not require physical efforts, I personally believe that physical exercise is an essential component of the daily routine of the youngest. First, having a healthy lifestyle is considered trendy by young people. Indeed, the constant access to social networks and the Internet has allowed people, especially the youngest, to acquire a deep knowledge of what is healthy and what is not. Incentives to do physical activities and practice sports are given by fashion bloggers, yoga classes have been hugely successful with the pandemic, videos are on the Net promoting outdoor activities. Second, research has shown that an increasing number of children is overwhelmed by all the activities their daily routine consist of. Indeed, what has been noticed is a tendency for very young people to have their day filled up by so many things that they do not actually have time to sit down and watch tv. Not only do they spend all day at school, but they often take additional classes after school, they practice at least two or three different sports and not even during the weekend do they have a break. Third, technology helps people to stay fit, especially the youngest. The mobile phone counts the steps taken every day, as well as the wristwatch and they give an alert when they are not enough to reach a daily goal. Moreover, apps detect how much time people stay sit and if they need to take some steps or drink some water. To sum up, it is true that many forms of entertainment are stationary but being healthy is a top priority for young people nowadays not only because it is trendy but also thanks to the help of parents and technology.

The two charts represent what is the rate of participation of people at cinemas, theme parks and sport events in the year 2009 and how much the public spent both for a single and a family ticket. Overall, while sport showed the lowest level of attendance, cinemas were by far the most favourite entertainment venue and the cheapest one as well. In contrast, prices to the football games were the highest. In the whole year, the number of tickets sold for sport events were less than 200,000; this can be related to the high prices, especially regarding football. Indeed, costs for football games go from a lower of $71 to $75. On the other side, much cheaper are the tickets to basketball games ($34 per person) and cricket games ($80). Cinemas experienced the highest rate of attendance in one year (more than 1,000,000) and this can be thanks to the fact that 1 ticket costs only $15 while a family ticket $55. On the other side, theme parks proved to be almost as pricey as sport events, with the cost for a single ticket of $70 and a family ticket of $210.

On the other hand, local languages are what define the true identity of a country. A strong body of research has demonstrated that languages are strongly related not only with the local culture and traditions but also with the way in which people think and behave. Indeed, knowing the local language make people feel part of a community and this is an essential component of human life. In addition to this, languages shape the way we think and we perceive reality and it is connected with the way in which we perceive ourselves as individuals. For example, English people do not have such a clear distinction between the different shapes of blue as Russian people do have instead, since in their vocabulary different nuances of blue have different names. Therefore, local languages should be thought and preserved because they enrich ourselves and the whole community. To sum up, English should be learned by anyone because the increasing globalization make the knowledge of the language essential for the future working life; moreover, English allows for the fist time international communication and enable people to feel part of a global community. On the other hand, also local languages should be preserved since they are related with our identity and shape the way in which we think and perceive reality.

Nowadays, the knowledge of the English language is required for most job-positions around the world and even companies operating in the domestic market do not hire people without a solid knowledge of the English language. While I believe that English should be thought since elementary school, I also think that many are the reasons why local languages should be preserved as well. On the one hand, English must be learned for many different reasons. First, English is an essential skill for the future working-life; indeed, because of the globalization, companies from different parts of the world are increasingly interconnected and require employees a high level of English so as to be able to work together. Second, English allow people to travel without feeling lost. If people did not speak English, this would originate problems for communication that nowadays can be easily avoided thanks to the familiarity that most people have with the language. Furthermore, English allow people to feel part of a global community that shares the same taste in music, habits, movies. Indeed, many websites and blogs thanks to the English language have allowed people with similar interests to be connected as never before. (TO CONTINUE NEXT POST)

IELTS TASK 1 The graph provides information about the recycling percentage of four different materials (paper and cardboard, glass and containers, aluminium cans, plastics) in an unknown country. Data are provided every four years between 1982 and 2020. Overall, all the different materials show an upwards trend with the percentage of recycle at the end of the time period higher than that at the beginning. However, while both aluminium and plastics experienced a steady increase overtime, paper and cardboard trend fluctuated in the timespan while the recycle of glass containers reached a low and then increased again. For what concerns aluminium, the percentage of recycling was very low at the beginning (in 1986 it was approximately 2% ) but, among the different materials, it is the one that grew more steadily overtime and by 2008 more than 40% of total aluminium was recycled. Plastics grew as well but at a much lower level, starting from no recycling at all in 1986 to almost 10% in 2010. On the other hand, paper and cardboard experienced a fluctuating trend especially before 1994. Indeed, there was an increase in recycling from about 65% in 1982 to 70% in 1986 followed by a decrease to the original value in 1990 and an increase to 80% in 1994. Then the recycled amount decreased steadily until 2010 when it returned again to 70%. The recycle of glass containers showed a downwards trend until it reached a low in 1990 (with only 40% of recycling) and then it steadily increased until 2010 when the amount recycled reached 60%.