TASK 1

Question:
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task. You should write at least 150 words.
The graphs below show the enrolments of overseas students and local students in Australian
universities over a ten year period.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons
where relevant.

Essay
The graphs provide statistics about international and local students enrolled in Australian
Universities over a course of ten years, ranging from 2001 to 2010.
Overall, what stands out from the graphs is that there were upward trends in the volume of
undergraduates in both the overseas and native segments. The former had an increasingly high
annual intake of new applicants, whereas the latter’s commencing rate per year stagnated.
Regarding foreign admissions, there were around 20 000 students at the start of the decade
(2001) and this number went up significantly to 80 000 in 2010 with a steady speed of nearly 20
000 more every three years. This phenomenon is attributed to the relatively proportional rise in
new recruits. Originally, about 10 000 students signed up for higher education and 8 years later,
four times as many (roughly 40 000) commenced, making up to half of the pool.
Moving on to the second graph, the upper line demonstrating local enrolments started with 400
000 and rose considerably from 2001 to 2007, but then flattened and remained stable at 600 000
for the last three years. The trend is accompanied by a disappointingly low rate of upcoming
freshmen. Although fluctuating for most of the studied period of time, this figure never went too
far from the 200 000 mark, the highest being 220 000 in 2002.