Band 9: You should spend about 20 minutes on this task. The charts below show the percentage of students on an adult education centre taking various courses offered in 1985 and this year. You should write at least 150 words.

The two pie charts compare the proportion of students attending various courses at an adult education centre in 1985 and in the present year.

Overall, while fitness and dance remained equally popular over time, there were noticeable changes in the preferences for other subjects, with IT emerging as a new and highly popular course, replacing music appreciation.

In 1985, the most attended courses were modern languages, accounting for nearly a quarter (24%) of all students. Fitness and dance followed closely at 22%, while art and local history attracted 17% and 15% respectively. Cookery and music appreciation were less common, at 14% and 8%.

This year, modern language courses experienced a decline to 17%, while cookery classes became more popular, increasing to 19%. The proportion of students taking art (15%) and fitness/dance (22%) remained relatively stable. A major change is the introduction of IT courses, which now account for 27% of enrolments, replacing music appreciation entirely.

In summary, there has been a clear shift in interest towards practical and modern subjects such as IT and cookery, while traditional subjects like modern languages have declined in popularity.