The diagram shows the changes that have taken place at West Park Secondary School since its construction in 1950.
Sample Response
The diagrams illustrate how West Park Secondary School has developed over the 60-year periodduring the period of 60 years since it was first built in 1950. Overall, the school facilities were expandedschool area has been expanded and the car parka car parking area occupied a much larger areaconsumed a great deal of space over time while the farmland was converted into a small sports field.
Initially, in 1950, West Park Secondary School's site containedground area consisted of a school building and a playground behind it. Three houses3 blocks of houses and farmland occupied the rest of the area. 30 years later, the housesresidential place was replaced by a car park and a science blocka car park and science block which was located next to the main building of the school. Meanwhile, the farmland was converted to a sports field. In the year 2010, the car park increased in size which now occupied the area where the sports field used to be in 1980. As a result, the playground area was reduced by a third to make room for the sports field.
Why this response received Band 7.5
The report gives a strong overview and accurately traces the school's development across all three years, selecting the main additions, removals, and reductions. Its main limitation is occasional imprecise or awkward phrasing, particularly around the expansion of the car park and the relative-clause structure; prioritise using exact spatial terms and checking tense and clause attachment while preserving the effective chronological organisation.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The overview highlights the major transformation, and the report accurately covers the houses, farmland, science block, car park, sports field, and reduced playground.
Refine the spatial description by stating that the enlarged car park occupied most of the former sports field while a smaller sports field replaced part of the playground.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response progresses clearly from the overview through 1950, 1980, and 2010, with effective chronological linking and appropriate paragraphing.
Maintain this sequence while making the final two changes a slightly clearer paired comparison between the car park, sports field, and playground.
Lexical Resource
A good range of development and location vocabulary describes the maps clearly, though phrases such as "residential place" and "car parking area consumed" are imprecise.
Prefer exact map language such as "housing," "car park," "expanded into," and "occupied."
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex and passive structures are generally well controlled, with occasional tense and relative-clause problems that do not impede meaning.
Revise the 2010 sentence so the enlarged car park is the clear subject and the relative clause attaches unambiguously to it.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The diagram shows the changes that have taken place at West Park Secondary School since its construction in 1950.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.