IELTS Writing Task 1: A bar chart

a bar chart_Jeffrey
Here is a band 9 sample answer from an examiner: (189 words)

The bar chart compares the percentage of male and female teachers in six types of different educational institutions in the UK in 2010. The educational settings range from Nursery to University and significant differences between the two genders is evident.

According to the chart, women predominated in schools for children. This was particularly true of schools for very young children. For example, over 95 percent of nursery school teachers were female. The situation was similarly one-sided in primary schools, where over 90 percent of teachers were women.

Men and women were more equally represented in teaching institutions catering for older children and young adults: secondary schools and colleges. College lecturers, for example, were 50 per cent female and 50 per cent male.

On the other end of the scale, males held a larger share of teaching posts in higher-level institutions. This was particularly illustrated in the University sector, where twice as many males were teaching staff than females.

Overall, women were more likely to hold the more typical maternal roles of teaching young children. Males, on the other hand, predominated in the higher status teaching role of university lecturer.

IELTS Writing: difference between sufficient and enough

The synonym of enough is sufficient, however, they are not interchangeable and mean slightly different in some cases. 

Sufficient is the limit needed of something.
Enough might not be the limit but depending on the will or mood. 

For example:

I have enough money to buy a house. - Here enough will mean I can buy the house and fulfill my other needs as well. Enough gives sense of fulfillment here. It indicates less towards the actual cost of the house, and more towards my sense of fulfillment. 
I have sufficient money to buy the house. - Sufficient means that it does the job at present. Sufficient will always be relative to an imaginary amount, and it will imply that if my needs increase, I may not be in a comfortable position. 

IELTS Grammar: Difference between “Between” and “Among”

A lots of students ask me about the difference between "between" and "among/amongst". You may have noticed that I said students ask me about the difference between the words “between” and “among/amongst.” Many people believe “between” should be used for choices involving two items and “among” for choices that involve more than two items. That can get you to the right answer some of the time, but this is not completely accurate.

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IELTS Writing: attitude towards learning

Many people have a negative attitude towards learning. What are the reasons? What can be done to encourage them to have a positive attitude?

Here is my sample answer:

It might be true that quite a few people, particularly school children today do not have a positive attitude towards studying. In my opinion, emotions like studying anxiety and weariness are the main reasons for this. Teachers should foster and strengthen the predisposition of willingness to learn and ensure that young adults have the right motivation and capacity to learn and continue learning throughout life.

High levels of anxiety in the classroom have adverse effects that can lead to students avoiding work and learning things only at a surface level. Take mathematics as an example, many school children, whose grades are not up to standard, feel it might be difficult to catch up, because there is a perception that maths is one of the more difficult subjects to conquer, especially when their academic performances have already fallen behind others. There is a tendency of students with the higher marks to gradually develop a sense of superiority towards those with lower grades, whilst the latter may feel discouraged. As a result, these emotions have detrimental effects on students’ performance giving rise to negative attitude towards learning.

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