The graph shows estimated oil production capacity for several Gulf countries between 1990 and 2010.
Sample Response
The given illustration compares oil production capacity inof several Gulf countries namely Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE between 1990 and 2010. As shownAs is presented in the diagram, Saudi Arabia had the highest oil production capacitycapacity of oil production and its capacityproduction increased significantly. Initially, in 1990, Iraq & the UAE produced over 2 million barrels of oil per day whereas the production for Iran was 3 and for Kuwait and Qatar were less than 2 million Barrels. Saudi Arabia was the largest oil-producinghighest oil producing country that produced about 8.5 million barrels per daymore than 8 million barrels daily in 1990. A decade laterAfter 10 years, oil production capacity increasedthe oil production grew for all the countries except in the UAE, whereexcept the UAE, where the production was the sameproduction was same as it was a decade earlier. The upward trend in oil production capacityThe trends of more oil production continuedremained the same in all countries in 2005 except Qatarexcept in Qatar. Finally, in 2010, Iran produced more than 4 million barrels daily, for Iraq, Kuwait & the UAE the production was nearly 4 million barrels. Saudi Arabia produced much more oil than other Gulf countries throughout the periodas it did for all the mentioned years and in 2010 its capacity wasand this in 2010 it was almost 15 million barrels per day.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response establishes Saudi Arabia's dominance and gives a broadly accurate chronological account of production changes across the six countries. Its main limitation is precision and coverage: several values are rounded loosely, Iraq is said to exceed two million barrels in 1990 when it is at two, and the middle years receive only vague treatment. Prioritize clearer cross-country comparisons supported by selected figures from each year.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The report identifies the dominant country and main upward trends, but some figures are imprecise and the 2005 comparison is underdeveloped.
Support the overview with accurate selected values, including Iraq at two million in 1990 and Qatar's fall after 2000.
Coherence and Cohesion
The chronological sequence is easy to follow, although presenting the entire response as one paragraph weakens the grouping of overview and details.
Separate the overview from two detail paragraphs, grouping Saudi Arabia with the larger producers and the smaller producers together.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary covers production, change and comparison adequately, but repetition and awkward phrases such as 'trends of more oil production' reduce precision.
Use a wider set of accurate trend expressions such as 'rose steadily', 'remained stable' and 'declined after peaking'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Meaning remains clear through varied sentence forms, but agreement, article and clause-joining errors occur noticeably.
Check subject-verb agreement and restructure long comparisons so each country and figure has a complete grammatical clause.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The graph shows estimated oil production capacity for several Gulf countries between 1990 and 2010.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.