Tracking and monitoring technology Nowadays technology is increasingly being used to monitor what people are saying or doing (for example, through cell phone tracking and security cameras). In many cases, the people being monitored are unaware that this is happening. Do you think the advantages of this development outweigh the disadvantages? In the nowadays world more and more various devices are used to control or inspect people, but for the most people this process remains unnoticed, so they are usually unaware of being observed. People have different opinions on whether advantages outweigh the disadvantages, but as far as I’m concerned, although there is an ethical problem, but in the matter of safety, monitoring definitely has more positive than negative aspects. People who are against using monitoring technologies usually appeal to the fact that observation especially if people are unaware of it is extremely unethical; in addition it infringes personal privacy. I suppose nobody will be happy to find out that our posts or even private messages on the social media are monitored. The above drawbacks are quite important, but I still believe positive sides of these technologies are prevailing over the negative. GPS and other tracking technologies can come in handy for example if your cell phone or suitcase was accidentally left on the subway, your stolen or lost phone can be found by using an application and tracking technology, you can make it ring, lock it or even delete all the information, as for luggage security cameras may help to find it. Furthermore, monitoring is very useful in cases of emergency, when people are lost or cannot name their location directly, for example if they are kidnapped. Such inventions as security cameras and eavesdropping devices can be used as great crime-fighting tools; these are making the investigation progress faster and more effective. In fact, long experience proved this to be true as a lot of crimes were solved with the help of ATM cameras, supermarket CCTV etc. In conclusion, I want to admit that there are certain problems related to these technologies, but positives seem to far overweigh the negatives, especially when a situation needs an immediate action to deal with it.

Bar chart: Southland’s main exports The bar chart depicts the data concerning Southland’s main exports in 2000, 2017 and future projections for 2015. Three sectors, such as international tourism, dairy products and meat products are chosen for comparison. Information is presented in billions of pounds. It is clear from the chart that 2025 was the most successful year for international tourism, 2017 for dairy products and 2000 for meat products sector respectively. International tourism sector shows an increasing trend, dairy products seem to have the same tendency but exports are predicted to decrease, whilst meat products export has the opposite trend and numbers are gradually decreasing. International tourism revenue has increased from approximately 8 billion in 2000 to 9 billion in 2017, and is forecasted to reach about 10 billion pounds in 2025. According to the data in the chart, profit from dairy products export experienced a rapid growth from slightly more than 7 billion in 2000 to about 10 billion in 2017 and is going to progress. Meat products reveal the lowest export levels among the other sectors with the maximum figures in 2000 when they reached 6 billion pounds which are expected to go down to 5 billion by 2025.

Describing a line graph: average monthly temperatures in London, New York and Sydney A line chart depicts changes over 12 months, showing the average number of hours of sunshine in London, New York and Sydney. Cities are represented by three curves, months from January to December appear on the horizontal axis, and temperature scale from 0 to 35 is on the vertical axis. According to the table total annual hours of sunshine for London, New York and Sydney are 1180, 2535 and 2473 respectively. It may be seen clearly that New York turns out to be the city with the highest sunshine hours, while London has the lowest. As for the line chart New York and London reveal similar trends, the temperatures in these cities tend to be low in the period from January to March then gradually increase by the middle of July reaching the maximum temperatures of about 23 and 29 degrees for London and New York accordingly. Consequently numbers dropped off steadily by December. The curve referring to Sydney shows quite the opposite trend, the maximum temperatures of about 30 degrees can be observed in January and December, whilst minimum temperatures are in July.

Old-fashioned values in the nowadays world Most people indeed tend to judge their peers and colleagues, friends and even relatives by their social status; it became a common way of assessing people in the modern world. A lot of people think it is wrong and we should pay more attention to the old-fashioned values, such as kindness and trust, but materialistic ideals seem to gain more and more popularity among people in many places around the world now. We do overrate social status and material possessions, especially when it comes to judging other people. Let’s take material possessions, such as cell phones, cars, luxury watches and clothes. Why do people buy these things? Do we really need them? Of course we don’t, that’s why we don’t wear high-heels or suits when we’re at home. When you are at your own room everything you wear and everything you do doesn’t depend on nobody but ourselves, we don’t need to show off to impress somebody. It is humans’ nature, we will never stop judging people, and we choose appearance, money and status, just because these are the most convenient criteria. It is pretty difficult to assess the level of kindness or honor, so all that is left for us is to choose the most obvious aspects. Besides, everybody does so, it’s easier to follow the crowd. Although we have such a negative trend, but it doesn’t mean, that we shouldn’t try to improve this situation. I don’t say, that we can change the world at once, but we can start from ourselves, encourage kids to be kind, be polite to other people, it is possible become a reliable person and choose the friends you can trust. A Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu said: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with one first step", so we have a long way to go before we can see the results.

Describing a bar chart: Percentage of British people giving money to charity The bar chart shows the percentage of British people making donations in 1990 and 2010 with classification by age. A steady but significant rise can be seen in the percentage. An analysis of the data by age shows that older people give more money to charity in both of those years, but percentage drops off for people over 65. The maximum percents can be observed in 1990 when numbers for 36-50 age group were up to about 42% whilst minimum results of approximately 7% in 2010 were shown by 18-25 years old group. The minimum percent is for the youngest group, in 1990, around 17% of 18-25 year old people donated money, but this figure had fallen to 7% by 2010. There were also moderate decreases, of approximately 5-7 percentage points, for the 26-35 and 36-50 age groups (going down to about 24% and 35% respectively in 2010). However, percents for 51-65 and over 65 groups proved to have the higher level than the same groups in 1990, figures reached about 40% and 35% accordingly, about 3-5 percentage points higher than in 1990.

Describing a graph: computer ownership Two bar graphs bellow show percentage of the population using computers between 2002 and 2010, and computer ownership in comparison with education level in 2002 and 2010. It is clear that the first graph shows the gradually increasing trend, the numbers raised from about 55 percent to slightly less than 80 percent throughout the period shown. The second graph reveals the difference in percentage of computer ownership by education level, lower figures on the chart are for 2002 and higher are for 2010, though both years show steady growth. According to the graph percentage of people who obtained higher levels of education is higher than of those who didn’t, the numbers raise progressively in accordance with levels of education, from people with no high school diploma to postgraduate qualifications holders. The percent of computer ownership for people with no high school diploma increased from 15 in 2002 to 40 percent in 2010, the figure for high school graduate category raised from 35 to 65 percent, college category shows growth in numbers from 55 to 85 percent. The graph also shows an increase from 70 to 90 percent and 75 to 95 percent of bachelor degree and postgraduate qualifications holders accordingly.

Describing a chart The bar chart shows changes in the annual number of rentals and sales of films in VHS, DVD and Blu-ray formats in one particular store from 2002 to 2011. Rentals and DVD reveal the opposite trends, rentals became less popular, whilst DVD’s popularity, despite of the slight decrease in the last years, increased over the time, both were available during the whole period; VHS were much less popular than rentals and DVD, and the sales were stopped in 2005. In 2006 only rental service and DVD were available for the customers. In the period from 2006 to 2011 blu-ray sales began to rise gradually. Film rentals were the most popular in 2002 when the sales reached 175 000. Revenue from rentals fell steadily over the next 9 years and was at its minimum in 2011. According to the data in the table DVD sales were at their minimum in 2002 and increased steeply up to 2007 when the numbers attained their peak of more than 200 000, after that figures decreased gradually and eventually went down to 170 000. The chart shows number of VHS sales between 2002 and 2005. The figures decreased from 75 000 in 2002 to 5000 in 2005 and eventually ceased trading. Blu-ray went on sale for the first time in 2007 and grew in popularity steadily for the next 4 years， maximum sales are slightly over 10 000.