Recently I was telling students that for certain statistics, generic labels like number and amount might not be suitable, for example when you’re writing about employment. Then today I saw this up-beat news item from the BBC, which contains some nice examples of ’employment speak’! Continue reading
percentages
Men and women and work
This article from the Economist includes some nice vocabulary and structures for IELTS Task 1 writing. Click linked words and phrases for more information or head directly to the analysis below.
Women in England and Wales are having 1.9 children on average, fewer than their mothers who had 2.2 offspring, according to the Office for National Statistics. That’s a small decrease but the lowest level on record and continues the downward trend of the past few years. The decline is in part due to a growing number of women not having children, with one-fifth now childless. There has also been a fall in the number of teenage pregnancies. About 6% of women have a baby before their 20th birthday, again continuing a long-term downward trend. But “it’s not just childlessness,” said Emily Knipe of the Office for National Statistics. More and more women are having fewer babies. The data showed about one in 10 mothers today having four or more children, compared with one in eight of their mothers’ generation.
Women are also having babies later. By their 30th birthdays, women today are likely to have had one child. Their mothers were likely to have had 1.8. The ONS suggested this is because more women are going into higher education and are also delaying finding a partner. Ms Knipe said: “It’s not just a biological factor of people leaving it too late. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests people are choosing not to have children.”
Analysis
Trends
The word ‘trend‘ is only used once, and even then it is used together with ‘downward‘! See this post for further discussion of ‘trend‘.
Although is used to contrast two trends at the same time. This is a good thing to do, if you can, in your IELTS Task 1 overview.
Indonesians notice the contrasted items are separated with a comma without ‘but’ (akan tetapi).
- Although female-dominated industries have suffered fewer job losses from globalisation and technological change, they also pay less.
Referencing and substitution
One way to avoid repetition in your writing is to refer to nouns using referencing words as substitutes (it, they, this, those, etc). using these will improve your score for coherence and cohesion (CC). Examples here include:
- This form of segregation.. (= men and women pursue different lines of work)
- ..those that have long employed women.. (those = ‘the fastest growing industries in America)
- This does not mean.. (This = slow growth of sectors dominated by men)
- ..they also pay less. (they = slow growth of sectors dominated by men)
- ..the figure (= % of American doctors and lawyers who are women)
- ..this process takes time (= changing male and female roles in the workplace)
- At this rate.. (= the rate at which full gender equality is to be achieved)
Notice that the pronoun ‘it’ is not used at all as a substitute! Read this post to find out why.Vocabulary (Lexical Resource)
In IELTS terms there is some high-band vocabulary and interesting collocation:
- pursue (v) + lines of work (n)
- segregation (n) – in this case male / female
- better off (adj) – comparative form of well-off (wealthy)
- capture (v) + jobs (n)
- mere (adj) – to emphasise a low figure
- gender (adj) + parity (n) – sophisticated synonym for gender equality
- the field – the work field (Make sure you establish a context before reducing a phrase like this!)
Tenses
Present simple is used for situations that are true all the time:
- Men and women often pursue different lines of work.
- etc.
Present perfect is used to talk about trends that began in the past and are still happening now:
- ..many sectors…have grown much more slowly..
- etc.
Will is used for prediction:
- ..the field will not achieve gender parity for another 200 years.
Percentages
When a percentage is mentioned for the first time it is always followed by of + the whole. If you’re not sure what is meant by the whole, I suggest you read this.
- In the 1960s, less than 10% of American doctors and lawyers were women.
- Today over 60% of chefs and cooks are men.
- ..a mere 10% of all nursing jobs.
If you’re preparing for IELTS Task 1, I strongly recommend that you read my other posts that deal with percentages.
Structures
The writer uses a participle clause to add information about a trend. In IELTS Task 1 this structure – comma + __ing – is often used to present the result(s) of a trend. For more information, see this post.
- Today, women graduate from university at higher rates than men, putting them in a stronger position for many well-paid professional jobs that were once male-dominated.
How low can you go?
Women having a first child was low in both years (1995 and 2005).
Women was low(?!) Here we have some subject/verb disagreement, and so I’m guessing that it was actually a different singular countable noun that was low, and not ‘women‘!
- The percentage of women having a first child was low in both years (1995 and 2005).
Your opening theme was ‘women‘. If the women you mention were indeed low then this could mean several things (click for captions):
The women were midgets?
The women had their first child at a topographically low location?
The women were depressed when they had their first child.
The women found it easier to give birth to their first child while limbo dancing.
The women were behaving immorally?
When you’re describing numbers, you must describe numbers. Remember that numbers are represented by statistics words: number, amount, percentage,rate, ratio, etc. If you do not use one of these words then your writing becomes very difficult to follow, and obviously this affects your IELTS score.
Don’t forget the whole!
The graph illustrates information about the results of a poll of theatregoers regarding disturbances during theatre performances. In general the 4 most disturbing problems are coughing, rustling sweet papers, whispering and arriving late. Their percentages stand at above 50%.
Thanks to the context setting at the start of the essay, I can see that 50% means 50% of the theatregoers who took part in the poll. But it’s not immediately obvious and I had to read the opening a second time to make sure I understood what you meant. If a text is difficult to understand then it will receive a low score in IELTS for coherence and cohesion (CC). In the example above it can also affect your score for task achievement (TA), because you don’t really say anything meaningful about ‘50%‘. (See IELTS Task 1 Writing public band descriptors)
A good strategy to introduce and develop percentages in IELTS Task 1 can be seen in this extract from an article in The Economist (analysis below):
Data collected by USC Annenberg (University of Southern California) demonstrate that the “hyper-sexualisation” of men in films has increased substantially in less than a decade. Of the 100 top-grossing films at the US box-office in 2007, 4.6% of male characters [1] were seen dressed in “sexualised attire” and 6.6% [2] were shown “with some nudity”. In 2014 those figures stood at 8.0% and 9.1% [3]. 2013 marked the highest point of this trend (the year that “Man of Steel”, featuring Mr Cavill, was released), with 9.7% of male characters [4] shot in sexually alluring clothing, and 11.7% [5] taking some—or all—of their kit off on film.
That said, Mr Cavill and Mr Harington would do well to remember that these figures are paltry when compared to those of actresses. In 2014, 27.9% of female characters [6] wore ‘sexy’ clothing and 26.4% [7] exposed their chests, legs, or other body parts on camera: they are roughly three times more likely to be objectified on screen than men.
(source)
What is ‘good’ about this reporting of percentages?
[1] The first percentage is expressed using the following pattern:
x% + of + noun (‘male characters’) + verb (‘were seen dressed..’)
Notice that the reader knows exactly what is meant by ‘male characters‘ thanks to the clear context setting of the opening sentence. Setting a context like this makes your writing coherent. When you use this structure you explicitly state the ‘whole’ – in this case ‘male characters’.
[2] The second percentage obviously also applies to ‘male characters’, and so there is no need to repeat ‘..of male characters’.
[3] ‘Those figures’ signals back to the previous two percentages, which we understand refer to ‘male characters’. Notice the structure:
past time expression (‘In 2014’) + subject (‘those figures’) + ‘stood at‘ + x%
[4] ..follows the structure:
x% + of + noun (‘male characters’)
[5] is in the same sentence as [4], and so we can assume the figure also refers to ‘male characters’.
[6] ..follows the structure:
x% + of + noun (‘female characters’).
We’re not surprised to read ‘female characters’ because this new context was set in the opening sentence of the paragraph. Again, this context setting makes your writing both cohesive and coherent since you explicitly state the whole (now ‘female characters’).
[7] is in the same sentence as [6], and so we can assume the figure also refers to ‘female characters’, which is the new context of this second paragraph.
Whatever you do..
Make sure your first mention of a percentage includes an explicit reference to the whole:
x% + of + noun (the whole)
Would anybody like to try and re-write the text about theatregoers to make the ‘50%’ figure mean what it’s supposed to mean? Answers in comments below! 🙂
PS. Another example of what I’m talking about just came to my attention:
Researchers identified 990 fatal shootings in 2015 – more than twice as many as had ever been recorded in a single year by the federal government – and Washington Post data journalists and graphic designers built an interactive, searchable database detailing those incidents.
A team of Washington Post reporters dug into the data and revealed that most of those who died were white men armed with guns who were killed by police in threatening circumstances. But The Post also uncovered some troubling patterns: A quarter of those killed were suicidal or had a history of mental illness. More than 50 of the officers involved had killed before. And while only 9 percent of people killed by police were not armed, unarmed black men were seven times more likely than whites to die by police gunfire.
source: Washington Post
Only 37% student?!
AAS students which have just about 37% students, submit assignments on time.
You seem to be saying that AAS students are not completely AAS students – 63% of each AAS student is not an AAS student!?
Perhaps you mean:
- AAS students, who represent just about 37% of all students, submit assignments on time.
You are much more likely to make sense if you construct a noun phrase in which your percentage number is followed by ‘of’:
x% + of + ‘the whole’(???) + verb + etc.
Make sure you state the whole explicitly. For example if you are discussing male and female representation among students, then the ‘whole’ is students. If you want to say that 50% of students are female, do not write 50% of females are students. For a more detailed look at what I mean by the ‘whole’, take a look at my post Don’t forget the whole.
Use this structure with the first two or three numbers that apply to each new theme that you introduce and your reader will understand what the numbers refer to. You will also receive a good score in IELTS in all four assessment criteria (see public band descriptors).