WRITING TASK 1

The table below gives information on consumer spending on different items

in five different countries in 2002. Summarise the information by selecting
and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

The table shows three types of expenditure habits (routine, clothing and cultural) in
five countries ( Ireland, Italy, Spain, Sweden and Turkey) for the year 2002. It can be
clearly seen that in 2002 the five countries had the largest expenditure in routines’
habits like food, drink and tobacco, followed by clothing and cultural ones.

Turkey and Ireland, with an overall 30%, are the nations with the largest expenditure
for the first category surveyed. Sweden had the lowest expenditure (5.5 %) compared
to Italy (9.0%) in clothing sector. Spain and Ireland had the lowest expenditure in
culture (2%) compared to Turkey (4.4%). In fact, the last one shows a double
investment in this sector respect Spain.

To sum up, for the nations considered there’s the greatest expenditure for drinks,
tobacco and food rather than the others.

WRITING TASK 2

It is generally believed that some people are born with certain talents, for
instance for sport or music, and others are not. However, it is sometimes
claimed that any child can be taught to become a good sports person or
musician.

Discuss both of these views and give your own opinion.

To be a genius. The popular belief claims that a genius is a person with innate
skills and he doesn’t need of working hard to learn something or to perform some
activity. But others say that to be talented is a question of hard work. In the essay, in
order to show both these points of view, I want to illustrate Mozart and Vivaldi’s case
and complete my argumentation considering other factors who can influence the
talent’s people like the education system and the cultural expenditure of a nation.

Mozart, an Austrian composer, is considered a genius of the classical music

because he started to compose symphonies when he was 2 years old and further
studies on his brain showed evidences of some remarkable features responsible of his
geniality. Vivaldi, an Italian composer, is considered a great classical musician too, but
his popularity was due to hard work and study. In fact he was, in the early days,
student at the Venice’s music academy and then an eminent composer and teacher.

Although to be talented could derive from innate skills or just hard work, it must
be considered some other aspects, like the education system and the national
expenditure in learning programmes. In fact, a study’s cycle who can lead to the
University, is a way by which you can learn and specialize yourself in a specific area of
interest and becoming talented in that way. So, for example, you can start at the
primary school and then continuing the education at the high school so, at the end,
achieving a university’s degree. Furthermore, you can decide of attend a Master
course and to be talented in a specific area. But a learning pathway is influenced by
how much a nation spends in learning opportunities. By this I mean that if a nation
doesn’t invests in school and research, it’s very difficult the talented people’s growing.

In conclusion I would say that talented people are considered by a mix of

geniality and an hard study – work activity.