Band 6+: The chart below gives information about the most common sports played in New Zealand in 2002. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

The bar chart illustrates how many boys and girls in New Zealand engaged in different pastimes in 2002.

Overall, girls generally enjoyed playing netball and going swimming the most, while boys tended to play soccer and other sports. It is also clear that the dramatic differences can not be seen in the figures for those teenagers of both sexes playing tennis, basketball, or joining athletics.

About 26% of girls in the survey said that they often played netball in their free time, compared to only 1% of their male counterparts. Similarly, the percentage of girls going swimming was far higher than that of boys, with the respective figures being 23% and 14%. Dramatic differences were also seen in the proportion of boys and girls who opted to play soccer, which were 25% and 5% in that order. As for playing cricket, around 12% of boys chose to do this activity, while only 1% of girls did so.

The percentage of people playing tennis was almost the same for both genders, which was roughly 9% of the total boys and girls in the survey having this leisure pursuit. While nearly 9% of boys also played basketball, a slightly lower proportion was seen for girls (approximately 7%) who did the same.