Question –
WRITING TASK 1
You should spend 20 minutes on this task.
The charts below show the changes in ownership of electrical appliances and amount of time spent doing housework in households in one country between 1920 and 2019.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
Answer –
The line charts display the variations in ownership of washing machines, refrigerators and vacuum cleaners and how many hours were spent on doing housework in one country between 1920 and 2019.
Overall, the percentage of households owning these electrical appliances increased over the period in question, with washing machine ownership experiencing the least dramatic growth. Moreover, the time spent on domestic chores per week declined continuously over the same period.
Looking at the first graph, the proportion of households that had washing machines started the period at around 40%, and then, this figure rose slightly to 70% in 1960, after which it dipped to slightly more than 60% in 1980, and the value went up to around three quarters over the next 39 years. Households who had refrigerators accounted for roughly 1% in 1920, and there was a dramatic increase in their numbers to 90% in 1960, and in 1980, it reached 100% and remained the same until 2019. The figure for vacuum cleaners began at approximately 30%, after which it rocketed to 100% in 2000, and then, the value plateaued until the period’s end.
Focusing on the second chart, in 1920, the number of hours spent doing domestic tasks, such as washing clothes, preparing meals and cleaning, per week per household was 50 hours, and it fell dramatically to around 15 hours in 1980 before levelling off until 2000, and then it again decreased to just over 10 hours by 2019.