IELTS Mock Test 2021 July Writing Practice Test 2

The first pie chart shows the percentage of housing owned and rented in the UK in 2007 and second pie chart shows the same for the year 1991.

There has been a drastic increase in number of houses in UK from 22 million homes in 1991 to 27 million homes in 2007. In the pie charts, the mode of procurement of homes is categorised into four types, they are home ownership, social renting, private renting and social housing.

Home ownership accounted for major share of the pie in both years and social housing got the least share in both years. There was a considerable increase in home ownership from 1991 to 2007 and the percentage of homes under social renting and social housing were halved in 2007 from 1991 figures. However, the percentage of people living under private renting remained same in both years. 

Overall, more people have moved to owning a house than living under social renting and social housing which indicates that economic status of people living in UK has improved over the years.

It is true that in some countries people spend long hours at work and it happens for several reasons including development of economy, market competition, maximisation of individual wealth, etc. I feel that there are both positive and negative ways of looking at this. However, the negatives outweigh the positives.

People work for long hours in order to achieve great things in life. Long hours of work has helped people to become billionaires. People like Jeff bezos, Jack ma, Elon Musk and Gary Vee have spent most of their waking hours working. In fact, there was a time when Elon Musk used to sleep for just one hour a day and that hard work has paid off. He is one of the most richest people on Earth. It is fine for people living in developed countries to work less, but people in developing countries like India, China and Brazil, work for longer hours in order to survive. The companies in these economies want to work longer to dominate the market and to have an edge over their competitors because of the universal rule, who works more, achieves more.

However, it is unfair that people have to work this hard and long. Why do we live? People these days are born to work until they die. Is this how the system is supposed to be? I don't think so. People must be able to spend time with their family and friends which is becoming uncommon these days. Even entrepreneurs like Elon Musk have said that people should not work this hard. It is not true that people who work less don't succeed. Take examples of countries like Norway, Denmark and Netherlands where people work for lesser hours and still enjoy life as good as people who work for longer hours in countries like India and China.

In conclusion, I would like to say that people should not keep working for major time of their lives. They must spend time with their loved ones more than they spend time at office. In fact, recent studies have shown that people who work for several hours together are less productive.