The graph below shows the number of enquiries to tourist information office made by telephone, letter/email, and in person from January 2001 to June 2001.
Sample Response
The line graph outlines the number of enquiriesqueries a tourist information centre received during the first half of 2001 via phone calls and letters and emailsletter/electronic mails as well as enquiriesquestionings made by people in person. Generally speaking, people made increasingly more enquiries in person throughout the periodstarted making more enquiries in person after March 2001 while email and letter enquiriesquery dropped. As the graph suggests, the tourist information office received around 1800 enquiries from people in January 2001 of which the largest numberthe maximum came through phones. AlongsideAgainst 800 phone queries at that time the office receivedthey got 600 emails and letters and 400 in-person visits from people regarding information. The number of emails or postal queries dropped over the period and in June the office received only 200 such queries, one-third of the January figureone-third than that of starting of the year. Interestingly, more people visited the office to log their questions and this number reachedreached to 1200 in the middle of the year. Though telephone enquiries were predominant at the beginning of the year, they dipped slightly in February before returning to 800 in March and remaining stable in Aprilremained constant between January and April. Afterwards, the telephone enquiries rosegot higher and reached to about 1100 in June 2001, slightly lower than the number of enquiries made in person. The total number of enquiriessuch prove made by people to this tourist office increased to nearly 2500, about 700 more enquiries than in Januaryalmost 500 more enquiries than that of January.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response identifies all three enquiry channels, presents the dominant trends, and supports them with generally accurate figures. Its main weakness is precision: the overview mistimes the rise in in-person enquiries, and the final comparison understates the increase from January to June, while awkward phrasing occasionally reduces clarity. Prioritise exact trend statements and verify every calculation against the graph before adding a concluding comparison.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The report provides a clear overview and covers the main trends with mostly accurate figures, but it contains a few inaccurate trend and total comparisons.
State that in-person enquiries rose throughout the period and correct the January-to-June increase in total enquiries.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information progresses logically from the overview to each enquiry channel, but presenting the whole report as one paragraph weakens its organisation.
Separate the overview from two grouped detail paragraphs so the contrasting trends are easier to follow.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a reasonable range of trend vocabulary, though several unnatural choices such as 'questionings' and 'such prove' reduce precision.
Use standard chart-reporting collocations such as 'enquiries made in person,' 'fell to,' and 'the total number of enquiries.'
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of sentence structures is used and meaning remains clear, despite recurring errors with articles, comparison forms, and verb complementation.
Review comparative structures and remove incorrect forms such as 'one-third than' and 'reached to.'
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The graph below shows the number of enquiries to tourist information office made by telephone, letter/email, and in person from January 2001 to June 2001.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.