The bar below represents the percentage of pupils having passed their school leaving

exams, by subject and sex, during the period 2003-04. What catches our attention at first is
the fact that in every subject, except one, girls have outdone boys. Regarding the dogma
that boys have better math skilss, we clearly see that girls have made better results in
mathematics and any other science subjects,including Biology, Chemistry, Physics. In English
and French there is a sharp difference between those two sexes. 65.2% of girls have paased
English, while only 49.6% of boys did successfully. In other subjects, there is a slight
difference, however, girls seem to be more academically productive. Geography is the only
subject, where boys have made better results with 2.0%. It might be linked to boys being
fond of football and other sports. Moreover, girls are leaders and have overtaken boys with
6.0%(girls - 36.0%, boys - 30.0%) in subjects, referring crafts, design and technology too.
This outcome might be the result of girls being more hardworking in school or boys being
stressed when it comes to examinations.

Time spent: 19 minutes

Word count: 181