Universities should accept equal numbers of male and female students in every subject. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
During the last century, people did not even take the time to ask this question to themselves whether educational institutes should enrol an equal number of male and female students? Firstly most of the female students stopped going to school much earlier than they do today. And secondly, female and male were separated in class in their early childhood. Besides, male as female used to respect the moral and customs of their period. They were much more sensitive about what could the society think about them. Indeed, it was unusual to see a woman taking up medical studies.
Despite the evolution of our society and the growing women’s power some universities or ancient institutions still tend to dismiss candidates’ applications for unique gender reasons.
A university is always trying to attract the best students within its walls. If an institution was led to neglect some applications from brilliant students only to respect this equal number of male and female, I would say one thing: this kind of recruitment is not fair. A part of the students dismissed by the university might be the more deserving of a place when we first glance at their proficiencies than other students accepted only thanks to this new law in favour of the equality between men and women. By proceeding this way a university can lose many of future talented students who might bring fame to the university in return by becoming someone well-known. However, if a university has the same percentage of men and women with the same level of qualifications, in this case, they must be led to choose their future students according to this kind of criteria.
To conclude and in my opinion universities should not accept their future students owing to an equal percentage of female and male but by analysing carefully the students' competencies.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Remove unnecessary article Original: the female students Suggested revision: female students Why it matters: The general plural noun does not need the definite article here.
- 2. Use concise sequencing Original: And secondly Suggested revision: Secondly Why it matters: The sequencing adverb already links this point, so the conjunction is redundant.
- 3. Add the missing noun Original: female and male were Suggested revision: female and male students were Why it matters: Female and male are adjectives here and need a noun to identify the people.
- 4. Use a valid pairing Original: male as female Suggested revision: men and women Why it matters: This phrase needs a standard coordinated pair to express both groups.
- 5. Use parallel plurals Original: moral Suggested revision: morals Why it matters: The coordinated count nouns should both be plural in this general reference.
- 6. Fix question word order Original: what could the society think Suggested revision: what society might think Why it matters: An embedded question uses statement word order and society needs no article here.
- 7. Use natural phrasing Original: taking up medical studies Suggested revision: studying medicine Why it matters: This is the more natural expression for undertaking medical education.
- 8. Use precise wording Original: growing women’s power Suggested revision: growing empowerment of women Why it matters: Empowerment expresses increasing social agency more precisely in this context.
- 9. Choose the intended term Original: ancient institutions Suggested revision: long-established institutions Why it matters: Ancient describes extreme historical age rather than institutional tradition.
- 10. Clarify the basis Original: for unique gender reasons Suggested revision: solely on the basis of gender Why it matters: The original collocation is unnatural and obscures the intended discriminatory basis.
- 11. Use direct conditional form Original: was led to neglect Suggested revision: rejected Why it matters: The direct past form fits this hypothetical conditional and avoids an unclear passive construction.
- 12. Clarify the quota idea Original: only to respect this equal number of male and female Suggested revision: simply to maintain equal numbers of male and female students Why it matters: The revision expresses the numerical admissions policy clearly and idiomatically.
Suggested Rewrites
- the female students female students
- And secondly Secondly
- female and male were female and male students were
- male as female men and women
- moral morals
- what could the society think what society might think
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response presents a clear, consistent merit-based position and develops its central fairness argument with a useful qualification for equally qualified candidates. However, the lengthy historical opening is only loosely connected to the question, while frequent awkward phrasing and grammatical errors reduce precision. Prioritise a more direct introduction, add a concrete supporting example, and edit sentence structures and collocations for accuracy.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The position against fixed gender quotas is clear and relevant, but the historical opening is tangential and the main argument lacks a concrete example.
Replace the broad historical background with direct reasoning and develop the fairness argument through a specific university-admissions example.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response progresses from context to argument and conclusion, though the introduction is diffuse and the main body paragraph carries too many ideas.
Use one focused introduction and divide the central discussion into separate paragraphs for the main objection and the qualification.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is sufficiently varied for the topic, but several collocations and word choices, such as references to gender reasons and student proficiencies, sound unnatural.
Use precise admissions vocabulary and check collocations so that ambitious word choices express the intended meaning naturally.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of sentence structures is attempted, but frequent errors in agreement, articles, word order, and clause construction weaken control.
Edit each complex sentence for subject-verb agreement and natural clause order, especially in the introduction and long body paragraph.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Universities should accept equal numbers of male and female students in every subject. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.