#5 - IELTS Writing - Task1 - bar chart The chart provides information about contribution of agriculture, manufacturing and business and financial services to the UK economy in the 20th century. We can see from the data that, despite a slight rise in contribution of agriculture in the middle of the century, the percentage of impact of both agriculture and manufacturing is noticeably less in 2000 than in 1900. For business and financial services the pattern is reversed: contribution of this sector increased from ca 5% in the beginning of the century to ca 35% in 2000. A sharp decrease of the agricultural sphere happened between 1950 and 1975: after the peak in 1950, when the percentage of this sphere was about 50, it lowered to 10% by 1975. In comparison to this change, a further decrease to ca 3% by 2000 can be described as insignificant. Despite the fact that both agriculture and manufacturing showed an downward tendency, by the beginning of the century they had a comparable level of contribution to the economy, proportion was changing during the observation period.

#4 - IELTS Writing - Task2 - making changes It is known that most of people find it extremely difficult to leave the so-called comfort zone and to make changes in their lives. Despite the fact that it is considered as normal, resistance to making changes can influence a person’s life negatively, affecting different areas of life. First of all, resist of making changes can result in professional stagnation. To improve one’s career it is necessary to be flexible, to adapt to new circumstances and sometimes to introduce new ideas. If a person does not show enough flexibility, they are unlikely to get promoted. Secondly, people who are afraid of changes can face various problems in relationship. There is no doubt that in every relationship, may that be with friends, relatives or in a couple, people have to adapt to each other, find compromises and possibly change one’s lifestyle and habits. Lastly, resistance to changes can prevent people to improve their living conditions. Conservatism is not necessarily negative as a feature, but sometimes people do face necessity of changing something that they find global – a flat, for example, or a city, or even a country. If a person rejects a very perspective and interesting job position or study opportunity because it implies a move to another city, or if a family doesn’t change a small flat to a bigger one when there are kids in the family, such behavior seems irrational to me. In my point of view, if a person realizes, that he or she has problems with flexibility and making changes, the obvious answer is to try to simply overcome themself. It should also be helpful to try to remember similar situations from one’s former experience and to remind oneself that the results were definitely worth the changes. A further idea would be to take little steps to a big goal. If a person is scared to make changes because they seem too global, it should be much easier to divide a big change to a number of small changes one can easily cope with. All in all, one should always keep in mind that every change is to the best. However scary it might seem, the results are usually worth it, and even if there are some disappointments on the way, new experiences make life interesting.

#3 - IELTS writing - Task1 graphs&trends The graph provides information about domestic access to modern technology (CD player, mobile phone, home computer, internet access) in homes in the UK. It is noticeable that all trends are upward. Whereas, however, trends of CD players, home computers and internet access rose gradually, the trend of mobile phones fluctuated wildly. There was a significant rise in the trend in 1999 and in 2001, whereas the trend leveled off in 2000. It should be mentioned, that access to Internet increased significantly in the period of 1999-2001 rising from 10% to ca 33% within 2 years, and afterwards, in 2001-2003, the rise became more gradual. By contrast, the access to home computers was increasing gradually during the whole period, increasing from 35% in early 1999 to 55% in late 2002. This illustrates, that in the period of 1999-2000 the percentage of families having access to Internet was much lower than of those who owned a PC, whereas later the rise of both trends became parallel.

#2 - IELTS Writing - Bad news in newspapers - Part2 Taking the negative influence of bad news on people’s minds into account, one would suggest that the news editors could make life easier simply by choosing positive news rather than negative ones. I do agree with this point to a certain extent, a right balance between positive and negative information in mass media is important, but I don’t believe that the simple solution of reducing the bad news only is a very effective measure. There is no doubt that everyone would like to live in a perfect world with cheerful mass media, but it’s my belief that there are no easier means to bring this image into life than to do whatever one can to make other people’s life easier and better. Only this can make the world a better place not only in a newspaper, but in reality.

#2 - IELTS Writing - Bad news in newspapers - Part1 TASK: Present a written argument or case to an educated reader with no specialist knowledge of the following topic: News editors decide what to broadcast on television and what to print in newspapers. What factors do you think influence these decisions? Do we become used to bad news? Would it be better if more good news was reported? ________ It is known that every mass media has special people – news editors - who decide what information will be published in tomorrow’s issue. There are certain factors that influence their decision. The most important point, from my point of view, is the target audience of the newspaper, magazine or the TV channel. One wouldn’t expect to see much of political speculations in a Cosmopolitan, and Scientific American is not the right magazine to look for food recipes or fancywork patterns. Another point would be the country where the issue is published. Freedom of speech is declared as one of basic Human rights, but there are countries where mass media is controlled by the government, and authorities decide if certain information should be published or not. One historical example would be the Soviet press: negative events, which could make a less idealistic picture of the current situation in the country, weren’t published. Furthermore, there are events of worldwide importance that simply can’t be ignored, and, they have their influence on news editors’ decisions. These events can be both negative and positive: whatever draws society’s attention at the moment, the Olympic Games or a war in Asia, it will be shown in mass media. Whatever the reasons make the news editors choose information to publish, a lot of people think that there is too much negative news in mass media nowadays. It is claimed – and I agree with this point – that the prevalence of bad news influences people’s way of thinking, making them used to the bad and making their attitude to life negative. Experts say, for example, that airplanes are the safest means of transport, but lots of people are still scared of flying, because all air crushes are inevitably shown on TV, whereas there is no information about thousands of routes made safely every day.

#1 - Introducing myself Hi, my name is Marie, I'm Russian, I've graduated from my first university this summer and I'm continuing my education by taking a second degree course. My first subject is Information security ("Complex security of informatisation objects" - does that sound correct?), and my second subject is translating and interpreting. They are hardly connected with each other, but I'm quite fascinated by both of them. I'm preparing for my IELTS exam currently, and I hope to use this website to improve my writing. I'm very thankful in advance to any advice according to both grammar and whether my writing is clear and understandable or not. I will be trying to help people with their Russian, though I'm not a professional teacher and my comments are more about whether it sounds OK or not.