Average Weekly Hours in Four Sectors

The question

How to approach this bar chart question

A bar chart compares categories or shows change between points in time. Write an overview of the biggest differences, then compare the highest, lowest and any surprise.

1. Name the chart, the units and the time or places it covers in one sentence (paraphrase the question).
2. Write an overview: the largest and smallest categories, or the main change over time.
3. Group the bars into two body paragraphs by similarity, not one by one.
4. Quote the key numbers only, with units, and compare them.

How to plan this answer

Structure

1. Introduction: paraphrase the bar chart, which shows average weekly hours worked in four sectors in 1995, 2010 and 2025.
2. Overview: Finance has the most hours in all three years, Retail has the fewest, and Healthcare climbs from third place to second place by 2025.
3. Body paragraph 1: the sectors that fell, Manufacturing, Finance and Retail, with their figures for each year.
4. Body paragraph 2: Healthcare's steady rise and its overtaking of Manufacturing, plus the ranking changes across the period.

Key features to spot

• Finance is the highest in all three years but falls from 46 hours to 41 hours a week.
• Retail records the largest fall, from 35 hours to 27 hours, and most of that drop happens between 2010 and 2025 (34 to 27).
• Healthcare is the only sector that rises in each period, from 36 to 38 to 40 hours.
• Healthcare moves from third place in 1995 to second in 2025, overtaking Manufacturing (37 hours) in the process.
• Manufacturing moves from second place to third, falling from 42 hours to 37 hours.

Useful vocabulary

• weekly working hours: Average weekly working hours in Healthcare rose steadily across the period.
• fell by: Average hours in Retail fell by 8 over the period.
• remained the highest: Finance remained the highest sector in all three years.
• overtook: Healthcare overtook Manufacturing by 2025.
• climbed steadily: Hours in Healthcare climbed steadily from 36 to 40.
• the sharpest decline: Retail shows the sharpest decline of the four sectors.
• in ranking: There is a change in ranking between Healthcare and Manufacturing.
• a marked fall: Retail saw a marked fall between 2010 and 2025.

Common mistakes

• Describing Healthcare as second-highest in 1995; in that year it was third, behind Finance and Manufacturing.
• Saying Retail fell steadily across the whole period, when most of its drop came between 2010 and 2025.
• Quoting Finance's 2010 figure as around 40 hours; the chart shows 44 hours.
• Comparing only 1995 and 2025, which hides the 2010 turning points and the ranking change in between.
• Giving reasons for the falls in hours, such as demand or technology, which the prompt rules out.

Examiner tip: With three time points, describe each period rather than only the start and end. Note which sector moves up or down the ranking in each period.