Leisure time by gender (grouped bar chart)
IELTS Academic Task 1 example: a grouped bar chart comparing average daily minutes men and women spend on five leisure activities, with a band 8 model answer.
Band 6.5
Prompt: The bar chart below shows the average number of minutes per day that men and women spent on five leisure activities. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
The bar chart compares the average number of minutes per day that men and women spent on five leisure activities: gardening, gaming, reading, sports and crafts.
Overall, men spent more time on gaming and sports, while women spent more time on reading and crafts, and gardening was fairly similar for both groups.
Men spent the most time on sports, at 45 minutes a day, and on gaming at 40 minutes, which were both much higher than the women's figures of 25 and 18 minutes for these activities. In contrast, women spent 35 minutes on both reading and crafts, compared with just 20 minutes and 10 minutes for men. Gardening was quite close, with women at 30 minutes and men at 25 minutes. So the largest differences between the two groups were in gaming, where men led, and in crafts, where women led.
Band 8.0
Prompt: The bar chart below shows the average number of minutes per day that men and women spent on five leisure activities. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
The bar chart compares the average number of minutes per day that men and women spent on five leisure activities.
Overall, men devoted more time than women to gaming and sport, whereas women spent longer on reading, crafts and gardening. The largest gender differences appeared in gaming and crafts.
Men spent the most time on sport, at 45 minutes a day, closely followed by gaming at 40 minutes. Their engagement with the remaining activities was considerably lower, at 25 minutes for gardening, 20 for reading and just 10 minutes for crafts, their smallest figure.
For women, the pattern was quite different. They spent the most time on reading and crafts, at 35 minutes each, and 30 minutes on gardening. In contrast, they devoted only 25 minutes to sport and a mere 18 minutes to gaming. The widest gaps between the sexes were in crafts, where women exceeded men by 25 minutes, and gaming, where men led women by 22 minutes. Gardening showed the most balanced split, differing by only five minutes.