Red Line 4, Coursebook

eighty-three 83 3 Statistics and a factual text • These statistics are from a survey of 200 7th and 8th grade students at a Californian middle school. • The topic was ‘Free time and vacations’. The questions were about vacations and favorite places. • First of all, if you look at the results, you’ll see that less than a sixth of the young people chose summer camp as their favorite type of vacation and only nine per cent wanted to visit a city. But almost three quarters of the class said a beach vacation was best. Less than five per cent wanted a different type of vacation. • Secondly, California was more popular than Hawaii or Las Vegas in the US. But outside the US, Mexico was the most popular country. In fact, over half the class chose it. Canada was the second most popular foreign country. And very few students, less than one tenth, chose a vacation in Europe. • So the results show that a beach holiday was the most popular type of vacation in this survey group and that Mexico was the most popular place. Topic of survey: Free time and vacations Survey group: 7th and 8th grades, Boulder Middle School, California Number: 200 What’s your favorite kind of vacation? beach 72% summer camp 14,5% city trip 9% other 4.5% What’s your favorite place (in US)? California 45% Hawaii 26% Las Vegas 2% other 27% What’s your favorite place (outside US)? Mexico 55% Canada 19% Europe 7% other 19% a) Look at the statistics and the report. Find the three parts of the report. b) Answer these questions about the statistics and the report. 1. What is the students’ favorite kind of vacation? 2. What are the most popular and second most popular places in the US? 3. Which country do they like better – Canada or Mexico? 4 Your turn: A survey and a report a) Do a similar survey in your class and collect statistics. b) Write a short report about the survey. The useful phrases can help you. First of all / Secondly … . The results show that … . the most / second most popular … is / are more popular than … very few/ less than a third of / a quarter of … per cent of / over half of In fact, … . So the results show that … . USEFUL PHRASES Don’t forget to look at your text when you have finished. A checklist can help you to find mistakes and make the text better. Here are some ideas for your checklist: Spelling? Tenses? Paragraphs? … WRI T ING SKI LLS Sh favourite kind of vacation skiing …% beach …% … favourite place (in Austria) … …% … …% … favourtie country (in Europe) … …% … …% … ➝ WB 59, 1 – 4 Workshop 4 S Writing a factual text Nur zu Prüfzwecken – Eigentum des Verlags öbv