The graph below gives information about the main purposes of overseas residents' visit to the UK between 2000 and 2016.
Sample Response
The line graph outlines people’s main purposes for travellingpurposes to travel to the United Kingdom between 2000 and 2016. As can be seen, takingenjoying holidays, meeting friends and relatives and businessbusiness needs were the foremost reasons overseas residentspeople from different countries went to the UK during the period and the number of those travellersthose travellers’ number grew over timeover the time. As the graph showsAs the diagram suggests, almost 10 million holiday visitorsseekers travelled to the UK in 2000 while roughly 7 million visited for businesswent there for business purposes. Around 6 million travelled to the country to visit friends or relativesmeet someone while another 3 million went to the UK for miscellaneous purposesnumerous other purposes. 2 million holiday seekers added to the list and after a decade nearly 12 million holiday seekers visited the UK. During this time, around 6 million business people, 8.5 million ordinary travellers to meet people reached the country. It is interesting to notice that the total travellers' number in 2016 was almost 10 million higher than that of 2000 and the highest number of people in 2016 travelled to the United Kingdom to enjoy their vacations. Moreover, the number of people who went there to meet relatives orof friends also increaseddeveloped significantly.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response gives a clear overview of the main purposes and accurately reports several useful figures for 2000 and 2010, with holiday travel correctly identified as dominant. Coverage is nevertheless uneven: important later values and fluctuations are omitted, and the claimed total increase by 2016 is understated. Prioritise a fuller comparison of all four series across the period, especially their end points, while tightening awkward sentence structures and data collocations.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The overview identifies the leading purposes and growth, and several figures are accurate, but later values, fluctuations, and the stable miscellaneous series receive limited coverage.
Compare the 2016 end points for all four purposes and mention the mid-period falls in business and visits to friends or relatives.
Coherence and Cohesion
The report moves logically from the overview to selected starting and mid-period data, though dense paragraphing and vague time references weaken progression.
Use separate overview and detail paragraphs, grouping the two higher-growth series apart from business and miscellaneous visits.
Lexical Resource
A reasonably varied range describes purpose and change, but expressions such as holiday seekers added and travellers' number are unnatural.
Prefer precise combinations such as the number of holiday visitors rose and visits to friends or relatives increased.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses varied sentence structures, but recurring errors in articles, possessives, agreement, and clause construction are noticeable.
Rewrite compressed data sentences with complete parallel clauses and check possessive forms such as the number of travellers.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The graph below gives information about the main purposes of overseas residents' visit to the UK between 2000 and 2016.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.