The charts below show the workforce profile at the top management jobs by ethnicity and race in South Africa based on a 2015/16 report.
Sample Response
The pie chart compares the South African top management workforce profilescenario based on racial groupsdifferent races and ethnicities while the bar graph depicts the corresponding distributionthe same ratio in the public and private sectors. The data is taken from a report published in 2015/16. It is evident that top management positions in South Africa are dominated by white employeeswhite dominant and white employees are over-represented in the private sectorwhites are over-presented in private job sectors while Africansthe Africans occupy the majority of top public-sector positionstop positions in public sector jobs. The pie chart reveals that white employees were noticeablywhites are noticeably over-represented in top management positionsover-presented in the higher job positions in South Africa as they accounted for over 68% of all top management positionsjobs compared with only 4.7% for Coloured employees and 14.3% for Africanscompared to only 4.7% and 14.3% Coloured and Africans in such positions. Indians representedrepresent just over 8.5% of this workforce while foreign nationals accounted for 3.5%foreigners work in 3.5% of such top-level positions. The bar graph depicts that South African top public sector jobs, over 73%, are dominated by African workers while white over-presents the private sector jobs. Three out of every fiveEvery three out of five top private-sector positionsjobs are occupied by whites. Finally, Indians accounted for 8 and 6 percentage private and public job positions, higher than the ratio of Coloured and foreigners' job ratio in top management in South Africa.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response gives a clear overview and accurately identifies the central contrast: White employees dominate overall and in the private sector, whereas African employees dominate public-sector management. However, the single-paragraph presentation and several inaccurate or awkward comparisons weaken precision, notably the three-in-five claim and the final comparison involving Indian, Coloured, and foreign-national shares. Organise the report into clear sections and verify each percentage against the charts.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The overview and most key proportions are accurate, but the private-sector White share is understated and the final racial comparison is not consistently true.
State the White private-sector figure as 72.4% and compare Indian, Coloured, and foreign-national shares separately by sector.
Coherence and Cohesion
The report follows a sensible introduction-overview-detail sequence, but presenting all 199 words as one paragraph weakens organisation.
Use separate paragraphs for the overview, overall workforce profile, and public-versus-private comparisons.
Lexical Resource
There is adequate range for describing dominance and proportions, but repeated awkward collocations such as over-presented and job ratio limit precision.
Use natural terms such as overrepresented, accounted for, and share of top-management positions.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex comparisons are attempted and meaning remains clear, although agreement, article, plural, and sentence-construction errors occur regularly.
Revise malformed comparison structures, particularly the sentences beginning Every three out of five and Finally, Indians accounted.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The charts below show the workforce profile at the top management jobs by ethnicity and race in South Africa based on a 2015/16 report.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.