Practice Series 6 Academic Writing Test 4

We are given two charts which show us a few sets of data about the marital status of the Americans between 1970 and 2000. The first chart compares the number of marriages and divorces in the United States of America between 1970 and 2000. We can see that data is given for each decade; the number of people who are getting married decreased slightly since 1980, as well as the divorces one. Nevertheless, divorces increased between 1970 and 1980. The second chart is more precise about the different marital status of the Americans between 1970 and 2000. The number of divorced people has risen more than the double during this two years, and the data for the never married people has also increased significantly. However, less and less people are married, as the first chart showed us; the widowed American number is also decreasing. As a conclusion, we can say that the marital status background of the Americans has maybe known the greatest change it had ever seen.

Over the last half century the pace of change in the life of human beings has increased beyond our wildest expectations. This has been driven by technological and scientific breakthroughs that are changing the whole way we view the world on an almost daily basis. This means that change is not always a personal option, but an inescapable fact of life, and we need to constantly adapt to keep pace with it. Those people who believe they have achieved some security by doing the same, familiar things are living in denial. Even when people believe they are resisting change themselves, they cannot stop the world around them from changing. Sooner or later they will find that the familiar jobs no longer exist, or that the 'safe' patterns of behaviour are no longer appropriate. However, reaching the conclusion that change is inevitable is not the same as assuming that 'change is always for the better'. Unfortunately, it is not always the case that new things are promoted because they have good impacts for the majority of people. A lot of innovations are made with the aim of making money for a few. This is because it is the rich and powerful people in our society who are able to impose changes (such as in working conditions or property developments) that are in their own interests. In conclusion, I would say that change can be stimulating and energising for individuals when they pursue it themselves, but that all change, including that which is imposed on people, does not necessarily have good outcomes.