Describing trends

The Present Continuous is often used to describe trends, particularly with verbs such as become, get (better / worse), develop, increase, improve or deteriorate.

• The lack of decent sports facilities is becoming a national scandal.

You may see adverbs such as quickly, rapidly, slowly, increasingly, gradually:

• A new determination to limit air travel is rapidly gaining ground.
• Young people are gradually coming round to the idea that jobs in the future will be harder to find.

We also use comparative forms and phrases such as more and more or increasingly:

• More and more people are expecting to live longer and longer.
• It’s getting increasingly difficult to justify building new motorways.

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