The charts below show the number of Japanese tourists travelling abroad between 1985 and 1995 and Australia's share of the Japanese tourist market.
Sample Response
The two charts compareGiven are two charts providing a comparison of Japanese tourists travelling abroad between 1985 and 1995, and the percentage ofas well as the certain percentages of Japanese touriststourist visiting Australia. The first chart shows thatIt can be inferred from the illustration that the number of Japanese tourists travelling abroad climbed steadily from 5 millionmillions people in 1985 to approximately 11 millionmillions in 1990. However, in 1991But in 1991, the number of Japanese travellersthe Japanese travellers decreased slightlydecrease steadily to 10.5 millionmillions. Before soaring to a staggering 15 millions in 1995, the number of travellers remained stable between 1992 and 1994 with 13 million travellers. It is also interesting to note that only 2% of Japanese outbound tourists2 percent out of 5 million travellers in 1985 went to Australia. The percentage of Japanese touristsThe percentages of the Japanese tourists in AustraliaAustrali went up steadily to 5 percent from 9.5 million in 1989. However, in 1990, the percentage rose to approximately 4.8%the percentages slipped to approximately 4.2 percent. By far the highest percentages of Japanese visited Australia in 1994 with 6.2 percent from 13.5 million people, by contrast in last year, the percentages dropped steadily to 6 percent out of 15 million travellers.
Why this response received Band 5.5
The response’s strongest feature is recognition that overseas travel by Japanese residents rose substantially and that Australia’s share generally increased. Its main limitation is data accuracy: several years and values are mismatched, the 1992–94 travel figures are incorrectly called stable, and the market-share peak and final year are shifted. Prioritise aligning every figure with its correct year and adding a concise overview before presenting detailed trends.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
Both charts are addressed and their broad upward directions are recognised, but repeated year-value mismatches and inaccurate claims about stability, the peak and the final market share make coverage unreliable.
Recheck the timelines separately, noting the 1991 travel dip, the 1992–93 plateau, the 1993 market-share peak and the 1994 slight fall.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response moves from total travel to Australia’s share in a generally understandable sequence, but it lacks paragraphing and the final long sentence combines contrasting years unclearly.
Use an introduction and overview followed by one paragraph per chart, with each trend presented in chronological order.
Lexical Resource
Some appropriate trend vocabulary is attempted, but recurring errors such as “millions people,” plural “percentages,” “from 9.5 million” and “staggering” weaken precision and formality.
Use “million people,” singular “percentage,” and neutral trend verbs while distinguishing traveller totals from percentage shares.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Frequent errors in agreement, tense, plurals, articles and clause boundaries occur throughout, although the main meaning is usually recoverable.
Keep tense consistently past, match singular subjects with singular verbs, and divide the final comma splice into controlled comparison sentences.
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IELTS Academic Writing Task 1
The charts below show the number of Japanese tourists travelling abroad between 1985 and 1995 and Australia's share of the Japanese tourist market.
Your response
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