The bar charts below give information about the railway system in six cities in Europe.
Sample Response
The bar chartschart provides information on railway systems in six capital cities in Europe, namely,Europe namely Paris, Stockholm, Lisbon, Rome, Madrid and Berlin. Generally speaking, Paris has the oldest and longest railway system while Lisbon'sLisbon train system carriesreceives the greatest number of passengers per year. Regarding their opening datesAs far as the ages are concerned, Paris'sParis railway system was established earlier than railway systems in other cities. It was launched in 1863 while the Stockholm railway, the oldest of the remaining fivefirstborn among the remaining five, was inaugurated in 1900. The railways in Lisbon, Rome and MadridLisbon, Rome and Madrid's railways were established in 1927, 1976 and 1981 respectively. The most recently opened railway systemThe latest locomotive, among the given cities, opened in Berlin in 2001started in 2001 in Berlin. In terms of the route lengthssizes, Paris has by far the longest railway route - 394 kilometres. This route is nearly twice as long asnearly twice than the train routes built in Stockholm and more than three times the length of Rome's rail tracksmore than thrice than the length of rail tracks in Rome. Madrid, in contrast, has the shortest rail route which is only 11 kilometres. Considering the number of passengers these railway systems receive each year, Lisbon ranks firststands the first position with 1927 million passengers per year. Paris, despite being the oldest railway system, carries 775 million passengers per yearreceives 775 million people in a year while Madrid serves the smallest number of train commuters, which is 45 million a year.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response is easy to follow and identifies the principal extremes across opening dates, route length, and annual passengers, using several accurate comparisons. Its main limitation is incomplete coverage of the middle passenger and route figures, alongside recurring unnatural expressions and comparative forms. Prioritise adding one or two meaningful comparisons involving Stockholm, Rome, and Berlin while using precise railway vocabulary and standard comparison structures.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The overview is accurate and the principal extremes are reported, but several notable intermediate route and passenger figures are omitted.
Add comparisons involving Stockholm’s passenger total and the route or passenger figures for Rome and Berlin.
Coherence and Cohesion
The report progresses logically through opening dates, route lengths, and passenger numbers with clear section-level transitions.
Strengthen presentation by placing the overview and each related set of details in distinct paragraphs.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied, but expressions such as firstborn railway, latest locomotive, and stands the first position lack precision.
Use accurate railway collocations such as opened, newest system, route length, and carried the most passengers.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Varied complex sentences are generally clear, although article, possessive, and comparative-form errors occur repeatedly.
Use standard comparisons such as nearly twice as long as and just over three times the length of.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The bar charts below give information about the railway system in six cities in Europe.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.