Pick out the main features of this table 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 table below shows average annual salaries of men and women in five professions.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
| Profession | Men | Women | Gap (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Doctor | 140 | 112 | 20 |
| Teacher | 46 | 45 | 2 |
| Engineer | 78 | 66 | 15 |
| Lawyer | 110 | 88 | 20 |
| Nurse | 58 | 56 | 3 |
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 table compares average annual salaries for men and women in five professions, in thousands of dollars, and shows the percentage gap between them.
Overall, men earned more than women in every profession, but the size of the gap varied widely. It was largest for doctors and lawyers and smallest for teachers and nurses.
Doctors had the highest earnings, with men receiving $140,000 and women $112,000, a gap of 20%. Lawyers had the same percentage gap, with men on $110,000 and women on $88,000, which means that the actual difference was $22,000, compared with $28,000 for doctors.
Engineering showed a gap of 15%, with men earning $78,000 and women $66,000, a difference of $12,000.
The gaps were minimal in the other two professions. Teachers were paid $46,000 if male and $45,000 if female, a difference of just 2%, while nurses earned $58,000 and $56,000 respectively, a gap of 3%.
Salaries in teaching and nursing were also considerably lower than those in the other three professions, for both men and women.
| Phrase | Meaning |
|---|---|
| average salary | typical annual pay |
| pay gap | difference between men's and women's earnings |
| earn more than | get higher pay |
| the widest gap | the greatest difference |
| almost equal | nearly the same |
| profession | type of job |
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