IELTS Academic Writing Task 1: Bar Chart 1(Car Trips Taken by Men and Women)

various reasons for car rides

Question:

The bar chart below shows the estimated percentage of car trips taken by drivers in 2005.

Answer:

The bar chart illustrates approximate percentages of car trips taken by male and female drivers for various reasons in 2005.

Overall, both men and women drove to and from work the most number of times whereas the least number of trips taken by gents were for going to banks and running errands, compared to visiting town by ladies. The maximum difference in the percentage of car outings made by male and female drivers was for work and shopping, accounting for around 10%.

With regards to driving for work purposes, both men and women drove more or less half of the total trips . However, more number of car trips were taken by male drivers for visiting town and recreations, slightly under 10% and just over 10% respectively, whereas female drivers took below 5% of the total trips for both of these purposes.

In contrast, for the remaining occasions more number of car trips were taken by lady drivers. Among the rest of the reasons, women drove the most for shopping, accounting for a little above 15% ,compared to men at exactly 10%. Similar trend was followed for attending courses, running errands, going to the bank and visiting friends which accounted for nearly 1 in 10 of the total trips taken by female drivers, while male drivers took about 1 in 20 with one exception of attending courses which caused male drivers to drive almost 1/10th of the trips.

• 
  Bar Chart
  

Hi, for the most part, I was impressed by your report. Here are my suggestions:

drivers for eight various reasons in 2005. {I think it is better to include how many reasons are shown}

taken by gents ... visiting town by ladies. {"gents" is definitely too informal for a report like this, and I believe "ladies" is inappropriate as well}

was for work and shopping, accounting for around 10%. {this seems unclear to me - accounting for 10% of what? Your are saying that in each category, the difference between male and female drivers is 10%, right? }

both men and women drove more or less half of the total trips . {this sounds like men took about half of the work trips and women took about half of the work trips - but that is not what you mean, right? Do you mean for both men and women, work trips accounted for about half of the total trips taken?}

However, a larger number of car trips were taken

... visiting town and recreation, {recreation is uncountable singular}

... below 5% of their total trips

remaining occasions a greater number of car trips

A similar trend was followed ...

@T J Luschen,

Thank you so much for your valuable feedback. I really thank you a lot for suggesting me better language constructs to use in my writing.

{this seems unclear to me ...}

--- Yes, I meant that in each category, the difference between male and female drivers is 10%. I am really sorry that it the way I wrote the sentence was not clear to you. Could you please suggest me a better way to put this?

{but that is not what you mean, right?}

-- Here I meant that out of the total trips taken by female drivers, 50% were taken for work purposes.
Also, out of the total trips taken by male drivers, 50% were taken for work purposes.

Could you please suggest me a better way to put this in a sentence?

Thanks again for correcting other grammar mistakes and suggesting better words.

I'm glad my feedback was helpful, you are very welcome.

For your first sentence, maybe:

"The maximum difference in the percentage of car outings made by male and female drivers was for work and shopping, with each category showing a gender differential of around 10%."

I think "differential" is a great word to incorporate in your vocabulary, or at least bring more to the front, as I bet you are already familiar with it.

For your second sentence I might recommend:

"With regards to driving for work purposes, this function represented more or less half of the total trips for both men and women."

But to me this is not really factually accurate, as I would not consider 39% (looking at the bar chart) "more or less half"

so maybe:

"With regards to driving for work purposes, this function represented slightly more than half of the total trips for men, while women lagged somewhat behind at slightly less than 40% of the trips they took in 2005."

"overall" is more suitable for conclusion, so you can reorganize the paragraph in your assay.