Model answers for every question type

The bar chart compares the average weekly time that people in three age groups in one country spent on four leisure activities in 2024.

Overall, the youngest group devoted most of their free time to social media, whereas television dominated the leisure time of the oldest group. Exercise and reading occupied comparatively few hours across all ages.

Social media use declined sharply with age. People aged 16–24 spent 14 hours a week on it, almost twice as long as the 25–44 group (8 hours) and more than three times as long as those aged 45–64 (4 hours). Television viewing followed the opposite pattern, rising from 6 hours among the youngest respondents to 9 hours for the middle group and 15 hours for the oldest, which made it the single most time-consuming activity in the chart.

Reading and exercise accounted for far less time. Reading increased gradually with age, from 2 hours to 5 hours a week, while exercise fell slightly, from 4 hours for the youngest group to 3 hours and then 2.5 hours for those aged 45–64.

The diagram illustrates the process by which used paper is recycled to produce new paper products.

Overall, the process consists of eight stages, beginning with the collection of waste paper and ending with the production of large reels of new paper. It can be divided into three main phases: preparing the waste paper, turning it into clean pulp, and forming new sheets.

First, used paper is collected from homes and offices and taken to a recycling centre, where it is sorted according to its type and quality. It is then mixed with water and chemicals and broken down into fibres. Next, this pulp is screened to remove contaminants such as staples, plastic and glue, before being de-inked, a stage in which air bubbles carry the ink to the surface so that it can be removed.

After an optional bleaching stage to whiten the fibres, the clean pulp is sprayed onto a moving mesh, where it is pressed by rollers and dried by heated cylinders. Finally, the paper is wound onto large reels, which are cut and sent to manufacturers to be made into new products.

The maps compare the village of Thornbury in 2000 with its present-day layout.

Overall, the village has become considerably more developed, with new housing and transport links replacing much of the green space in the north, while the area south of the main road has changed relatively little.

The most striking change is in the north-west, where the farmland that existed in 2000 has been replaced by a large housing estate. This is linked to the main road by a new access road, which meets it at a roundabout. To the east of the estate, the woodland beside the river has been reduced to roughly half of its original size.

South of the main road, the school has been extended and now has its own car park, and the village shop has been converted into a café. The playing field beside the river remains unchanged. Finally, a station has been built beside the railway line on the southern edge of the village, together with a small car park, making the village far more accessible by train.

The pie chart shows how households in Country A used energy in 2024, while the table compares average annual household energy consumption in three countries in 2004 and 2024.

Overall, heating accounted for the majority of household energy use in Country A, and consumption fell over the twenty-year period in two of the three countries, with Country C the only exception.

Space heating was by far the largest category, representing 42% of household energy use in Country A. Appliances and electronics made up a fifth of the total, slightly more than water heating (18%), and together these three uses accounted for 80% of household energy. By contrast, cooking and lighting represented only 8% and 7% respectively, with other uses making up the remaining 5%.

Turning to the table, Country A had the highest consumption in both years, although its figure fell from 21,000 kWh to 16,500 kWh, the largest decrease of the three countries. Consumption in Country B also declined, from 18,000 kWh to 15,800 kWh. Country C, which used the least energy, was the only country to see an increase, with its figure rising slightly from 12,500 kWh to 13,200 kWh.

The line graph compares the proportion of households with high-speed internet access in three countries, A, B and C, over the twenty years from 2005 to 2025.

Overall, access rose in all three countries, but Country A remained the most connected throughout, while Country B saw the most dramatic growth and almost closed the gap with A by the end of the period. Country C lagged well behind the others in every year.

In 2005, 45% of households in Country A had high-speed access, more than double the figure for Country B (20%) and over four times that of Country C (10%). Over the next decade, the rate in Country A climbed steadily to 82%, after which its growth slowed, reaching 94% in 2025.

Country B, by contrast, began slowly, rising by only ten percentage points to 30% by 2010, but then accelerated sharply, reaching 70% in 2020 and 85% in 2025. Country C showed the weakest growth: its figure edged up to just 18% in 2015 and 25% in 2020, before rising more noticeably to 41% in the final five years.

The idea of abolishing fares on buses and trains has gained popularity in recent years, and a number of cities have already experimented with the policy. Although free travel would bring certain benefits, I believe that, in most cases, public money would be better spent on improving services and on targeted discounts for those who need them.

The case for free public transport rests largely on its potential to change behaviour. If journeys cost nothing, the argument goes, many drivers would leave their cars at home, reducing congestion and air pollution in city centres. Free travel would also help low-income households, for whom fares can take up a significant proportion of their budget, and would make it easier for people without cars to reach jobs, education and healthcare.

However, the evidence that price is the main obstacle to using public transport is weaker than it might appear. For many commuters, the decisive factors are reliability, frequency and journey time. A free bus that arrives irregularly and takes twice as long as a car will not persuade many drivers to switch; instead, removing fares often mainly attracts people who would otherwise have walked or cycled. Meanwhile, fares provide much of the income that operators need to maintain and expand their networks, and replacing that revenue would require either higher taxes or cuts to other services.

A more effective approach, in my view, would be to invest in faster and more frequent services while offering reduced or free fares to specific groups, such as students, older people and those on low incomes. This would protect the people most affected by the cost of travel without sacrificing the funds needed to make public transport a genuine alternative to the car.

In conclusion, while free public transport is an appealing idea, improving services and targeting financial support would deliver greater benefits for both passengers and cities.

In recent years, a growing number of museums and galleries have digitised their collections and made them freely available online. In my view, although this trend carries some risks, its advantages clearly outweigh them.

The most significant benefit is access. Many people will never have the opportunity to visit the world's major museums, whether because of distance, cost or disability. Online collections allow a student in a rural village to examine a painting in Paris or an ancient manuscript in Cairo in extraordinary detail, often more closely than through a glass case. Digitisation also serves researchers, who can compare objects held in different institutions without travelling, and it creates a permanent record that would survive if the originals were damaged or destroyed.

Critics argue that viewing art on a screen is a poor substitute for the real thing. The scale, texture and physical presence of a sculpture or a large canvas are difficult to convey in an image, and some fear that audiences will settle for a superficial experience. There are also concerns that if people can see collections for free at home, fewer will buy tickets, reducing the income on which museums depend.

These objections, however, are less persuasive than they first appear. Online images tend to stimulate interest rather than replace visits; many people who discover a work online become more eager, not less, to see it in person. Museums can also generate revenue from digital activity, through online exhibitions, educational partnerships and sales of high-quality reproductions. And for the millions who cannot visit at all, a digital encounter is not a second-best option but the only one available.

Overall, while online collections cannot fully reproduce the experience of standing in front of an original work, they greatly widen access to culture and knowledge, and I believe this makes them a highly positive development.

Over the past two decades, the number of people who choose to watch new films at home rather than in a cinema has risen considerably. This essay will explain the main reasons for this shift and argue that, on balance, it is a positive development, despite some regrettable consequences.

The most obvious cause is technology. Streaming services now offer vast libraries of films for a monthly fee that is often lower than the price of a single cinema ticket, and many new releases appear online within weeks of their premiere. At the same time, large high-definition televisions and home sound systems have become affordable, narrowing the gap between the cinema and the living room. Convenience also plays a part: viewers can pause a film, watch it whenever it suits them, and avoid the travel, queues and distractions that a cinema visit can involve.

In many respects, this trend is beneficial. Watching at home is cheaper for families, more accessible for people with disabilities or those living far from a cinema, and it gives audiences a far wider choice of films, including independent and foreign productions that local cinemas rarely show.

Nevertheless, something valuable is being lost. Watching a film in a darkened room with hundreds of strangers is a shared cultural experience that a sofa cannot replicate, and many directors still design their work for the scale of the big screen. Moreover, if cinema attendance continues to fall, local cinemas may close, reducing the number of social spaces in town centres, particularly for young people.

In conclusion, the move towards home viewing is driven by cost, technology and convenience, and it has made films more affordable and accessible than ever. I therefore see it as a largely positive trend, but one that makes it all the more important to support cinemas as places where films can still be enjoyed together.

Universities have traditionally been places of scholarship, yet rising tuition fees and a competitive job market have led many to argue that their main purpose should be to prepare graduates for work. While there are strong arguments on both sides, I believe universities should prioritise academic knowledge while building employability into how that knowledge is taught.

Those who favour a vocational focus point out that most students enrol in higher education to improve their career prospects. When graduates spend three or four years studying and accumulate considerable debt, it seems reasonable to expect that their degree will equip them with skills employers value, such as project management, data analysis or professional communication. Courses that include internships or industry-led projects also allow students to test their career choices before committing to them.

On the other hand, supporters of a traditional academic model argue that specific workplace skills quickly become outdated, whereas the ability to analyse evidence, construct an argument and learn independently lasts a lifetime. A history graduate, for example, may never use their knowledge of the medieval economy at work, but the discipline of weighing conflicting sources is directly relevant to careers in law, policy or journalism. Moreover, if universities simply train students for today's vacancies, society loses the fundamental research that produces tomorrow's industries.

In my view, the two aims are not mutually exclusive. Universities should remain centres of rigorous academic study, since this is what distinguishes them from short vocational courses, but they can deliver that study through practical assignments, placements and collaboration with employers. In this way, graduates gain both deep knowledge and the ability to apply it.

In many major cities, the cost of buying or even renting a home has risen far faster than young people's incomes, leaving many unable to live independently until well into their thirties. This essay will examine the main causes of this problem and suggest measures that could address it.

The fundamental cause is a shortage of supply. Cities attract jobs and people, but in many places the construction of new homes has failed to keep pace with population growth, often because of strict planning rules, limited land and the high cost of building. When demand consistently exceeds supply, prices inevitably rise. This effect has been intensified by the treatment of housing as an investment. Low interest rates in the past encouraged investors to buy property as an asset, and in popular areas a significant proportion of homes are now let as short-term holiday rentals rather than lived in. Young people, who typically have lower incomes and smaller savings, are the first to be priced out.

Addressing the problem therefore requires action on several fronts. Most importantly, governments should make it easier to build, by reforming planning systems, releasing public land for housing and encouraging higher-density developments close to public transport. Secondly, cities could limit the number of properties used for short-term rentals and tax homes that are left empty, returning more housing to the local market. Finally, governments could expand social and affordable housing, with rents linked to income, and offer targeted help to first-time buyers, although such schemes must be carefully designed so that they do not simply push prices higher.

In conclusion, unaffordable housing for young people is primarily the result of too few homes being built, made worse by the use of property as an investment. Only a combination of increased supply and measures to ensure that homes are used as homes is likely to make city living affordable again.