The table below shows the number of kilometres passengers travelled on five types of transport in a European country in 1995, 2005 and 2015.
Sample Response
The table showsA glance at the table provided reveals the distances travelled by passengers on five modes of transportfive kinds of vehicles in a European country over a twenty-year perioda twenty years period, from 1995 to 2015. It is evident that there were contrasting trendsthere were fluctuations in the distances travelled in different modes of transporttransports over the given period, butover the given period but rail and bus travel recorded the greatest distancestrains and buses were more popular. One particularly interesting fact is that from a mere 2 billion kilometres travel in the airway in 1995, it soared to ten times in 2015. This shows that air travel accounted for a greater distance by 2015has become popular in recent years. Rail travelThe rail travel, meanwhile, increased by 10 billion kilometres between 1995 and 2005rose gradually by 10 billion in 2005 and reached 60 billion kilometresreached the 60 billion mark in 2015. From the tableFrom the given figure it is clear that travelling by railtravelling in railways was the mode with the greatest distance travelledmost popular form of travelling in the given European country. On the contrary, travelling on a bus was more popular in the 1990s, as 56 billion km were travelled using buses, but lost its popularity in the later years. Furthermore, distances travelled by bicycles and motorbikes were comparatively lesser and experienced a slow decline, to somewhere in the vicinity of 1 and 3 billion km respectively in 20051 and 2 billion km. respectively in 2005, followed by a slight increase in 2015. It is also interesting to note that the total distance travelled by the passengers in this country in 1995 was 103 billion km while it increased over the years and reached 130 billion km in 2015.
Why this response received Band 7.5
The response identifies all major trends and supports them with well-chosen, accurate figures, especially the rise in air and rail travel and the decline in bus use. Its main weakness is language precision, with awkward phrases such as “ten times” and “travelling in railways,” while the single dense paragraph limits presentation. Use more natural transport collocations and divide the overview from the detailed comparisons.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The report gives a clear overview and accurately covers the principal trends, key values, and total-distance increase across the period.
Refine the overview by stating explicitly that rail overtook bus, while air recorded the fastest proportional growth.
Coherence and Cohesion
The information develops logically from broad trends to individual modes and totals, but one long paragraph reduces the clarity of grouping.
Place the overview in its own paragraph and group the rising modes separately from bus, bicycle, and motorbike.
Lexical Resource
There is a good range of trend and comparison vocabulary, although several transport collocations and comparative forms are awkward or imprecise.
Use natural expressions such as “air travel rose tenfold,” “rail travel,” “modes of transport,” and “lower figures.”
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Varied sentence structures are generally well controlled, with some errors in number, articles, comparison forms, and noun phrases.
Edit phrases such as “a twenty-year period,” “2 billion kilometres of air travel,” and “comparatively lower” to improve accuracy.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The table below shows the number of kilometres passengers travelled on five types of transport in a European country in 1995, 2005 and 2015.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.