Pick out the main features of this line graph for your overview, write your report on a 20-minute timer, then compare it with a band-8 model answer.
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The graph below shows the percentage of men and women aged 18–24 enrolled in higher education in one country from 1970 to 2020.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
| Category | Men | Women |
|---|---|---|
| 1970 | 25% | 12% |
| 1980 | 28% | 20% |
| 1990 | 30% | 29% |
| 2000 | 32% | 38% |
| 2010 | 34% | 48% |
| 2020 | 36% | 58% |
GoPrep wrote this practice question in the style of the exam. It is not an official IELTS question.
An overview names the main trends or differences in one or two sentences, without numbers. These are the features a strong answer picks out:
Spend the first few minutes planning, then write.
0 words of 150 minimum
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Write your own answer first, then compare: how it answers the exact question, what each paragraph does, and which phrases you could borrow.
The line graph shows the percentage of men and women aged 18–24 who were enrolled in higher education in one country between 1970 and 2020.
Overall, enrolment rose for both sexes, but the increase was far greater among women, who went from being much less likely to study than men to being considerably more likely.
In 1970 only 12% of women were enrolled, compared with 25% of men. Over the following decades the male figure increased slowly but consistently, reaching 28% in 1980, 30% in 1990 and 32% in 2000. By 2020 it stood at 36%, an overall rise of just 11 percentage points.
The female figure grew much faster. It reached 20% in 1980 and 29% in 1990, which was very close to the male rate of 30%. The two lines then crossed, and in 2000 women led by 38% to 32%. The gap continued to widen over the next two decades, with women recording 48% in 2010 against 34% for men. By 2020, 58% of women were enrolled, 22 percentage points higher than the male figure, and almost five times their level in 1970.
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| higher education enrolment | the proportion of people studying at university |
| a fivefold increase | growth to five times the original figure |
| draw level with | reach the same figure as |
| overtake | move ahead of |
| modest rise | a small increase |
| gender gap | the difference between men and women |
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