Đề ngày 1/11/2018: Encourage cycling

Đề ngày 1/11/2018

Cycling is more environmentally-friendly than other forms of transport.

Why is it not popular in many places? How to increase its popularity?

Write at least 250 words

Sample answer

While riding bicycles cause no harm to the environment like other means of transportation, it is not the preferred option of the general public due to various reasons. Nevertheless, there are some actions that could be taken by governments to increase the use of bicycles.

Car or motorbike owners find multiple disadvantages of cycling. First, riding a bicycle is definitely not convenient for commuters who travel a long distance every day since it will require tremendous physical efforts and take a huge amount of time. Another inconvenience of cycling is that it depends heavily on the weather, thereby deterring human’s activities. For example, a heavy rain can cause an absence from work of employees who ride bicycles. Finally, there are a large number of countries, especially developing or third world nations, in which their transport systems are not designed to facilitate cycling. It means that cyclists have to share the same infrastructure with other vehicles. This will increase risks of traffic accidents for people who ride bicycles and discourage them from using this environmentally-friendly means of transportation.

Turning to solutions, the national authorities should pay attention to promoting cycling facilitation in urban planning, together with encouragement through social media. Particularly, governments should make more space for bike paths nationwide and finance this construction. Besides, national spending should invest in building self-service bicycle repair stations and automated bicycle sharing systems, like the one that is running effectively in Singapore at the moment. Also, the development of public transportation in combination with bike paths would be the best solution for long distance travelling. In addition, more advertisements and promoting campaigns should be launched on social media to educate citizens about how they can protect the environment by switching to bicycles.     

In conclusion, it is clear that cycling has some disadvantageous points regarding time-and-effort-consuming inconvenience for long distance commute, reliance on weather, and vehicular cycling. Nonetheless, there are some practical measures that state transportation planners can take in terms of developing cycle paths, cycling facilities, public transport and educating programmes.

Count: 337 words

Giáo viên Be Ready IELTS

New Vocabulary

• commuter (noun) [C]: người di chuyển từ chỗ làm về nhà và ngược lại;
• deter (verb): gây cản trở, khó khăn
• third world nations/countries (noun): các quốc gia thuộc thế giới thứ ba là các nước kém phát triển = undeveloped nations (các nước thuộc thế giới thứ nhất - First world nations - là các nước phát triển, các nước thuộc thế giới thứ hai là các nước đang phát triển - developing nations - trong đó có Việt Nam - tuy nhiên Second World nations là cụm từ rất ít được dùng mà chủ yếu là 2 cụm từ kia);
• urban planning: quy hoạch đô thị;
• bike paths/ cycle paths (noun): những con đường dành riêng cho xe đạp;
• self-service bicycle repair stations (noun): các trạm cung cấp thiết bị để tự sửa xe đạp nếu bị hư;
• automated bicycle sharing systems (noun): hệ thống chia sẻ xe đạp tự vận hành, còn gọi là hệ thống cho thuê xe đạp công cộng tự động. Cái này là cực kỳ phổ biến ở Singapore, Đài Loan, để khuyến khích người dân đi xe đạp mà không cần phải sở hữu 1 chiếc xe. Bạn có thể xem clip này để biết hệ thống thuê xe đạp vận hành ra sao nhé: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOlBw-sld1E