The charts below give information about travel to and from the UK, and about the most popular countries for UK residents to visit.
Sample Response
The diagrams show the number of international tourists who travelled to the UK, and British residents who travelled abroad between 1979travelled outside from 1979 to 1999. The bar chart also presentsThe data also presents the five most popular countriestop 5 countries that UK residents visited in 1999where UK citizens travelled in 1999.
Overall, the number of international tourists visiting the UK increased throughout the periodtravelling in the UK kept on increasing after 1989, and more UK residentspeople travelled abroadtravelled outside the UK than the number of tourists the UK received. According to the graph, around 10 million overseas residents visited the UK in 1979around 10 million international tourists travelled the UK. And the number of UK residents who travelled outside was 2-3 million more. Both of these numbers kept on increasing gradually until 1989till 1986 and after that, the number of UK citizens travelling outside rose sharplyincreased very sharply. The number of tourists the UK received also kept on increasing and reached over 25 million in 1999 while more than 50 million people travelled outside. The number of UK travellers who went to other countries was roughly twiceroughly double than the number of people who visited the UKcame to the UK for visiting. The bar chartThe second bar graph shows the countries to which UK residents travelled in 1999countries UK citizens travelled in 1999 and among them France was their favourite destination where more than 10 million UK residents travelled in 1999more than 10% of tourists travelled in1999. The second most visited country by UK people was Spain where about 9 million UK residents travelledabout 8% of total UK tourists travelled. Other countries visited by UK tourists were the USA, Greece and Turkey where fewer than 5 million UK residents travelledless than 5% UK tourists travelled in 1999.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response identifies the main travel trends correctly, including sustained growth, higher outbound travel, and France and Spain as the leading destinations. Its main limitation is data accuracy: every destination figure is presented as a percentage even though the bar chart measures millions of UK visitors, and one timing reference is imprecise. Prioritise exact units and selected year-by-year comparisons from both charts.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The overview and line-graph comparisons are broadly accurate, but the destination chart's values are systematically misreported as percentages rather than millions of visitors.
Report France at about 11 million, Spain at about 9 million, and the USA, Greece, and Turkey below 5 million each.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response has a clear introduction and overview before moving through the line and destination data, though dense paragraphing and some abrupt sentence links reduce polish.
Use separate detail paragraphs for the line graph and bar chart, avoiding fragments beginning with 'And.'
Lexical Resource
The response has adequate vocabulary for trends, comparisons, and travel, but repetition and awkward phrases such as 'travelled outside' and 'came to the UK for visiting' reduce naturalness.
Use precise terms such as 'travelled abroad,' 'overseas visitors to the UK,' 'outbound visits,' and 'destination.'
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of sentence forms conveys the main trends, but article, preposition, agreement, comparison, and sentence-fragment errors recur.
Check comparative structures such as 'twice as many as' and use complete clauses with consistent plural agreement.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The charts below give information about travel to and from the UK, and about the most popular countries for UK residents to visit.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.