University Subjects Chosen by Gender, 2024
A complete IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 question with a model answer of 217 words, plus a breakdown of the sentence structures, cohesive devices and vocabulary that answer uses. Write your own version first, then compare.
Written by Manish Sharma · CELTA and DELTA qualified · 8 years teaching IELTS
Score my answer to this questionThe question
You have 20 minutes. Write at least 150 words.
The bar chart below shows the percentage of female and male first-year undergraduate students enrolled in six subject areas at universities in the United Kingdom in 2024. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words. [Chart Data — Share of first-year UK undergraduates enrolled in each subject, by gender, 2024 (%)] Subject | Female | Male Nursing | 86 | 14 Education | 78 | 22 Psychology | 72 | 28 Business and Finance | 47 | 53 Computer Science | 22 | 78 Engineering | 18 | 82
How to approach it
- 01Spot the dominant gender in each subject and group the subjects by direction of imbalance
- 02Use multiplicative comparisons ('outnumbered men by at least two to one') for variety alongside raw percentages
- 03Lead the overview with the high-level pattern, not the most extreme bar
- 04Highlight the only subject that breaks the pattern — business and finance — as a meaningful contrast
- 05Use gender-neutral phrasing: 'female students', 'men outnumbered women' rather than emotive language
Model answer
217 words in 4 paragraphs. Read it after you have written your own, not before: the point of a model answer is to show you what you missed, and you cannot miss anything you have not attempted.
The bar chart compares the share of first-year undergraduate students at UK universities who chose each of six subjects in 2024, broken down by gender.
Overall, the figures reveal a clear gender imbalance across the subjects. Caring and educational disciplines were strongly female-dominated, while computer science and engineering were heavily male-dominated. Business and finance was the only subject where the two genders were close to evenly represented.
The most strikingly female-dominated subject was nursing, which drew 86 per cent of its first-year intake from women and just 14 per cent from men. Education followed a similar pattern at 78 per cent female and 22 per cent male, and psychology continued the trend with 72 per cent female and 28 per cent male enrolment. In all three subjects, women outnumbered men by at least two to one.
The technical disciplines showed an equally pronounced bias in the opposite direction. Engineering was the most male-dominated subject in the chart, with 82 per cent male and only 18 per cent female enrolment, while computer science was almost identical at 78 per cent male and 22 per cent female. Business and finance presented the clearest contrast to all of these, with men edging women by 53 to 47 per cent — a near-equal split that no other subject came close to matching.
What this answer actually does
Measured from the text above, and compared against the other 38 answers of the same type in this library. These are counts, not band scores: they describe what the writing does, which is the part you can copy.
9.5 more than the median answer for this task type
11 words at the shortest, 37 at the longest
2 fewer than the median answer for this task type
carry a subordinate or relative clause
Sentence rhythm
Sentences average 21.7 words and vary by 9 words either side of that, running from 11 words to 37. Variation is the point. Grammatical Range and Accuracy rewards a mix of simple and complex sentences, and an answer where every sentence is the same length reads as flat no matter how correct it is. 5 of the 10 sentences here carry a subordinate or relative clause.
The cohesive devices it uses
3 in total, spread across 2 different functions. Range matters more than count: an answer that opens every paragraph with a sequencer signals its structure but never signals a relationship between ideas, and Coherence and Cohesion is marked on both.
while
overall
Vocabulary and repetition
Ignoring grammar words, 64 per cent of the content words in this answer are distinct, and 47 per cent appear exactly once. Lexical Resource is where repetition costs the most marks, and the usual cause is not a small vocabulary but reaching for the same noun every time the topic is named.
The longest run of words copied straight from the question is 3 words. Examiners discount wording lifted from the question, so a short run here is the right outcome: the answer restates the topic in its own words rather than borrowing the question's.
What you are marked on
All four criteria carry equal weight, and your Writing band is their average rounded to the nearest half band.
Task Achievement
Cover the main pattern of gender imbalance and identify the subject that breaks it
Coherence & Cohesion
Group subjects by gender direction rather than describing each bar in isolation
Lexical Resource
Use precise vocabulary for proportion, comparison and gender
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
Use a range of comparative structures and complex sentences with accuracy
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