IELTS Writing Exam Tip
When describing visual information in Task 1, it is important to think about what tenses you will need. If the diagram includes time references (dates, years) you will need a range of past and present tenses. If the graph has no past time reference, you will need to use the present simple tense only.
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The bar chart below shows the percentage of students who passed their high school competency exams, by subject and gender, during the period 2010-2011.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
Students passing high school competency exams, by subject and gender, 2010-2011
Model answer
The graph shows the percentages of boys and girls who were successful in their high school competency exams in the period from 2010 to 2011, by subject.
Overall, students of both sexes performed best in Computer Science, Mathematics, and Foreign Languages, including French, German and Spanish. Results for boys and girls were roughly comparable the same in Computer Science and Mathematics. In other subjects, however, there were some significant differences.
Girls achieved by far their best results in Computer Science, with a pass rate of 56.3%, which was considerably around 14% higher than the boys. The difference was even greater marked in Chemistry, where over 16% more girls passed. The only subject where boys’ results were better than girls was Geography where they achieved a pass rate of 30.4%, which was 10% higher than that the result for girls.
In general, the statistics show that during the period in question girls performed better in most subjects in the competency exams than boys.
(162 Words)
