Table: University Enrollment by Subject Report (Band 9)
Band-9 Task 1 report on a university-enrollment table, with gender-gap analysis, triage technique, and education vocabulary.
The table shows the percentage of male and female students enrolled in six university subjects. Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features.
A Band-9 model report
The table exposes stark gender sorting across disciplines: engineering and computing skew heavily male, nursing and education heavily female, with business and medicine near parity.
Overall, the gaps are largest at the extremes — engineering is 82% male while nursing is 79% female — whereas business splits almost evenly at 52% male to 48% female. Medicine approaches balance at 55–45, suggesting convergence where prestige and pay are highest.
The male-dominated pair is emphatic. Engineering enrolls 82% men against 18% women — more than a four-to-one ratio — while computing shows 74% male to 26% female. These are the table's most lopsided figures, reflecting pipeline and cultural patterns that outreach programs have barely dented.
The mirror image appears in care fields: nursing at 79% female, education at 68%. Business (52/48) and medicine (55/45) demonstrate that parity is achievable — and notably, both are high-status, high-earning paths, hinting that gender balance follows perceived value.
The pattern suggests sorting by stereotype except where money overrides it. Prestigious paths attract both genders; gendered expectations govern the rest. Enrollment, the table implies, encodes culture more than choice.
(198 words)
Examiner notes: why Band 9
Task Achievement (9): Overview quantifies extremes and parity cases upfront. Every subject covered via grouping (male pair, care pair, parity pair) — complete without row-by-row listing.
Coherence & Cohesion (9): Extremes/mirror/parity sequence with the value-hypothesis close. "Skew," "mirror image," "encodes" sustain analytical register.
Lexical Resource (9): Gender-data precision: "sorting," "skew heavily," "lopsided," "parity," "pipeline patterns," "encodes culture." Sophisticated, sensitive, exact.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy (9): Em-dash qualifications, colon-led findings, concessive clauses. Clean.
High-scoring phrases
- gender sorting — distribution pattern (precise term)
- skew heavily — tilt strongly
- lopsided figures — uneven numbers
- barely dented — minimally affected
- mirror image — reversed pattern
- encodes culture — reflects norms close
Quick answers
How do I handle gender-split tables?
Lead with the gap direction per subject: male-dominated engineering, female-dominated nursing. Gap patterns are the story; totals are context.
Percentages within rows or columns?
Clarify the base in your introduction: share of each gender cohort enrolled per subject. One base sentence prevents all confusion.
Master every chart type in the Task 1 samples library.