Task 1 – report on visual data

The table shows how many people visited four museums in one city in 1995, 2005 and 2015.

Overall, total visitor numbers rose over the period, and the Science Museum was the most popular attraction in all three years. The Art Gallery was the only museum whose attendance fell over the twenty years as a whole.

The Science Museum saw the largest growth, with visitors increasing from 420,000 in 1995 to 510,000 in 2005 and then to 680,000 in 2015. The History Museum also became more popular, rising from 280,000 to 390,000 in the first decade, although it gained only a further 10,000 visitors in the second.

The other two museums followed different patterns. The Art Gallery attracted 350,000 visitors in 1995, but this figure declined slightly to 340,000 and then to 310,000. The Transport Museum, the least visited of the four in every year, dipped from 150,000 to 120,000 in 2005 before more than doubling to 260,000 in 2015.

As a result, the combined number of visitors to the four museums grew from 1.2 million to 1.65 million.

The table shows the proportion of household spending that went on six categories in one country in 2000 and 2025.

Overall, the most significant change was the growing share taken by housing and energy, which became by far the largest single category. Over the same period, the proportion spent on food and drink and on leisure fell, while spending on phones and the internet, although still small, tripled.

In 2000, housing and energy accounted for almost a quarter of household budgets (24%), only slightly more than food and drink (21%). By 2025, however, the figure for housing had risen to a third, whereas the share devoted to food and drink had dropped to 15%. Leisure and culture also declined, from 12% to 9%.

The remaining categories changed less. Transport remained almost stable, falling by just one percentage point to 14%, and 'other' spending decreased modestly from 26% to 23%. The only category apart from housing to grow was phone and internet services, which rose from a mere 2% of spending to 6%.

The table compares the proportions of workers in one city who used six different ways of getting to work in 2005 and 2025.

Overall, although the car remained the most common way of commuting, its share fell considerably, while cycling and rail travel became much more popular.

In 2005, well over half of all workers (58%) drove to work, but by 2025 this figure had dropped by 17 percentage points to 41%. Over the same period, the proportion of commuters using the train almost doubled, from 9% to 16%, and cycling grew even faster, tripling from just 4% to 12%, so that cycling overtook walking. Bus use also increased, though only slightly, from 17% to 19%, so the bus remained the second most popular form of transport in both years.

The remaining categories changed very little. The share of people who walked to work dipped marginally from 10% to 9%, and other methods of transport accounted for only 2–3% of journeys in both years.