The chart below shows the different levels of post-school qualifications in Australia and the proportion of men and women who held them in 1999.
Sample Response
The bar chart compares post-school qualificationspost-school educational attainment among men and women in Australia in 1999. As a whole, men were ahead of women in terms of their highest educational qualifications in Australia, and three out of five types of post-school educational qualifications, namely - post-graduate diploma, skilled vocational diploma and masters degree, were mostly attended by men. In detaildetails, those who had a post-graduate diploma and Master's degree were dominated by 70% and 60% men respectively. The proportion of women with a postgraduate diplomaThe ratio of women who had post-graduation qualification was about 30%was much lower. Another notable feature is thatAnother important aspect of the graph is that there was a remarkably high proportion of mena remarkable number of men, 90%, who held a skilled vocational diplomatook up a 'skilled vocational diploma course' while women accounted for just one tenthwhich left women to only just a tenth. Since men continued their education and achieved post-graduate qualifications, females with an undergraduate diploma much outweighed the ratio of males. Finally, the proportion of menmale whose highest education was a bachelor's degree accounted for about 45%was about 45%, whereas the female proportionthe females' ratio was slightly higher, at about 50%somewhat more than that.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The report accurately identifies the three male-dominated qualifications and gives correct figures or comparisons across all five categories. Its main weakness is interpretive precision: men are not simply ahead overall, and the suggested causal link between male postgraduate study and women's undergraduate majority is unsupported. Prioritise a neutral overview contrasting male-dominated and female-dominated qualification types without inventing causes.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All five qualification categories are covered accurately, but the overview overgeneralises male advantage and one causal explanation is unsupported by the chart.
State that men dominated vocational, postgraduate, and master's qualifications, while women led undergraduate diplomas and slightly led bachelor's degrees.
Coherence and Cohesion
The report progresses logically through male-dominated categories and then female-dominated ones, although all information is compressed into one paragraph.
Separate the overview from two comparison paragraphs grouped by male and female majorities.
Lexical Resource
The response shows a sufficient range of education and comparison vocabulary, with occasional inaccurate or awkward word choices.
Use 'held a qualification', 'accounted for', 'male-dominated', and 'the proportion of women' rather than attendance or ratio language.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A variety of structures is used, but errors with plurals, articles, agreement, and noun phrases occur regularly.
Correct forms such as 'in detail', 'master's degrees', 'the proportion of men', and 'women with undergraduate diplomas outnumbered men'.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The chart below shows the different levels of post-school qualifications in Australia and the proportion of men and women who held them in 1999.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.