The graphs below show the numbers of male and female workers in 1975 and 1995 in several employment sectors of the Republic of Freedonia.
Sample Response
The given bar charts illustrate the employment status of Freedonian women and men in different sectors in 1975 and two decades later in 1995. The x-axis presents the number of working people in thousands while the y-axis presents six sectors of employment.
The public sector is the greatest employment opportunity provider in both the fiscal years, providing job to almost 850,000 people with little change in the composition of male and female workers, where, more than 75% of women constituted its workforce. Jobs in manufacturing and finance/banking sector are fairly steady at around 600,000 and 450,000 respectively during both the years.
However, the composition of the workforce in finance/banking sector changed with almost all the women employees displaced more than half of the men workforce during 1995. Wholesale and retail trade industry's workforce grew slightly in 1995 but the composition of workforce reversed during the later year with men displacing more than two-thirds of women workforce. Communication sector employed twice the number of employees in the later year however it had hired a lot of men employees, levelling the male-female ratio of workers in its industry. Defense, however, had contracted its opportunities but it had increased the number of women workforce by more than half of its workforce which was quite negligible in 1975.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Describe measured quantity Original: employment status Suggested revision: numbers employed Why it matters: The charts show worker counts rather than employment status.
- 2. Use concise chart term Original: working people Suggested revision: workers Why it matters: 'Workers' is the precise and concise noun for the people counted on the axis.
- 3. Simplify sector phrase Original: Wholesale and retail trade industry's workforce Suggested revision: Employment in wholesale and retail trade Why it matters: The possessive construction is cumbersome and unnatural for naming the sector's employment total.
- 4. Quantify the increase Original: grew slightly Suggested revision: grew from about 1.25 million to 1.5 million Why it matters: The combined workforce rose by roughly 250,000, which should be reported with the available figures.
- 5. Name gender balance Original: the composition of workforce reversed Suggested revision: the gender balance reversed Why it matters: 'Gender balance' precisely describes which sex had the larger workforce.
- 6. Reverse incorrect comparison Original: men displacing more than two-thirds of women workforce Suggested revision: women overtaking men as their number rose from about 550,000 to 800,000 Why it matters: The graph shows women surpassing men in 1995, while the number of men remained around 700,000.
- 7. Add article and plural Original: Communication sector Suggested revision: The communications sector Why it matters: The sector name requires the definite article and is conventionally plural here.
- 8. Correct scale of rise Original: twice the number of employees Suggested revision: substantially more people Why it matters: Total communications employment rose from about 550,000 to 850,000, which is not a doubling.
- 9. Punctuate however correctly Original: in the later year however Suggested revision: in 1995; however, Why it matters: The conjunctive adverb needs punctuation when joining two independent clauses.
- 10. Identify female increase Original: it had hired a lot of men employees Suggested revision: all of the increase came from women Why it matters: Male employment stayed near 300,000, while female employment rose from about 250,000 to 550,000.
- 11. Correct gender outcome Original: levelling the male-female ratio of workers in its industry Suggested revision: causing women to outnumber men in the sector Why it matters: The 1995 figures show about 550,000 women compared with 300,000 men, not an equal ratio.
- 12. Use consistent sector name Original: Defense Suggested revision: The defence sector Why it matters: This supplies the article, names the sector explicitly and matches the response's British spelling style.
Suggested Rewrites
- employment status numbers employed
- working people workers
- Wholesale and retail trade industry's workforce Employment in wholesale and retail trade
- grew slightly grew from about 1.25 million to 1.5 million
- the composition of workforce reversed the gender balance reversed
- men displacing more than two-thirds of women workforce women overtaking men as their number rose from about 550,000 to 800,000
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response attempts to compare all six sectors and uses paragraphs to separate the introduction from sector details. However, its central interpretations frequently contradict the graphs, including the direction of gender changes in wholesale, communications, finance, and defence, while several sentences are difficult to parse. The priority is to rebuild the report from direct male-versus-female figures for each year before drawing conclusions.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The report addresses both years and mentions every sector, but most key comparisons are inaccurate or reversed and there is no reliable overview of the major gender changes.
Extract the male and female values sector by sector, then summarise only visually supported patterns such as women’s gains in communications, finance, wholesale, and defence.
Coherence and Cohesion
Paragraphing provides a basic structure, but long overloaded sentences and unclear logical links make several comparisons hard to follow.
Group stable sectors separately from sectors with major gender shifts and express one comparison per sentence.
Lexical Resource
The response attempts varied employment vocabulary, but frequent miscollocations such as ‘contracted its opportunities’ and repeated misuse of ‘displaced’ make meanings imprecise.
Use neutral reporting verbs such as ‘rose’, ‘fell’, ‘remained stable’, ‘overtook’, and ‘employed’ to describe the plotted changes.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Some complex structures are attempted, but frequent article, agreement, possessive, clause, and punctuation errors regularly strain readability.
Shorten multi-clause sentences and check that each clause has a clear subject, correctly formed verb, and unambiguous comparison.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The graphs below show the numbers of male and female workers in 1975 and 1995 in several employment sectors of the Republic of Freedonia.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.