In many schools and universities today, women have a tendency to study the humanities (such as the arts and languages) while men more often major in science related subjects. Some believe this tendency should be changed. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Sample Response
Today more and more parents and policymakers are concerned with the disproportionate ratio of males studying science relative to females. In my opinion, though there are likely social factors at play here that need addressing, there is little value in enforcinglittle value enforcing this change.
The main reason that many are striving to remedy this imbalance is thatbecause they feel it has social rather than natural causesit is societal, not natural. For centuries, women have sacrificed their career and educational opportunities forsubjugated their careers and education to male siblings and husbands. This has led to a history of mostly male role models in scientific pursuits, with women like Mary Shelly and Frida more likely to shine in the arts. Even today, there is a widespread bias that men are better at science, which may discourage girlsat science that may discourage girls. There have been a number of famous studies cataloging the gender imbalance in science, with most researchers attributing the imbalance to social rather than genetic factorsattributing this to social, rather than genetic, factors.
Nonetheless, heavy-handed efforts to force change are detrimental to both men and women. Women who are helped or strongly encouraged to pursue science rather than the arts will be less self-reliant and more likely to develop self-esteem problems. A parallelcorollary example would be the failure of affirmative action to promote racial equality. Individuals prosper when societal barriers to success are removed and they are given the opportunity to help themselves. If overly strong measures are taken, such as a quota of female majors in a given subject, that might place less qualified candidates above more deserving ones and then later manifest itself in reduced self-confidence from the unfairly elevated and resentment from those who were passed over.
In conclusion, though I am in favour of all reforms to provide for equal educational opportunity for the sexes, attempts to force a change in a tendency rather than allow it to changereform a tendency rather than allow for its change will bring about more harm than good. Rather, parents and educators should encourage students to pursue their passions.
Why this response received Band 8.0
The response presents a clear, nuanced position and develops it through a logically sequenced discussion supported by relevant reasoning and a concrete policy example. Its main limitation is that a few assertions and references are imprecise, particularly the claim that encouragement itself would reduce women’s self-reliance. The highest-priority improvement is to qualify this causal argument and support it with more directly relevant evidence.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The essay directly addresses the issue, maintains a clear qualified position, and develops both the social cause and the risks of forced intervention in substantial detail.
Strengthen the central causal claim about encouragement harming self-reliance by distinguishing supportive opportunity from coercive quotas and providing firmer evidence.
Coherence and Cohesion
The argument progresses clearly from the source of the imbalance to the drawbacks of enforced change, with cohesive devices and paragraphing managed effectively.
Tighten the transition within the second body paragraph so the affirmative-action analogy connects more directly to the proposed educational measures.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a broad and sophisticated vocabulary with generally precise collocation and effective control of abstract policy language.
Replace occasional awkward or imprecise choices such as “subjugated their careers” and “disproportionate ratio” with more natural formulations.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex structures are varied and consistently well controlled, and errors are rare and do not impede communication.
Review long conditional sentences for cleaner coordination and reference, especially where several consequences are linked in one sentence.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
In many schools and universities today, women have a tendency to study the humanities (such as the arts and languages) while men more often major in science related subjects. Some believe this tendency should be changed. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.