The bar charts below give information about the railway system in six cities in Europe.
Sample Response
The bar charts show data on the railway system in six European cities and the number of passengerscommuters these railways serve each year. At a glanceA glance at the illustration, Paris's railway systemParis railroad is the oldest and it has the longest route. On the other hand, Lisbon'sLisbon railway is the busiest railroad which serves 1,927 millionover 1900 million passengers a year. According to the bar chartsgraph, Paris's railway systemParis locomotive operation was established in 1863 making it the oldest of the six systemswhich is the oldest among the given six cities and it now has the longest rail route, covering 394 kmcovering up above 390 km. Stockholm has the second-longest railway networksecond largest rain tracks, about 200 km, and its railway system opened in 1900and was established in 1900. Lisbon is another old railway system that was openedbuilt in 1927 with more than 150 km of route. Rome, Madrid and Berlin railway systems were built after 1970 and among these three, Berlin is the newest, having opened in 2001Berlin is the latest that was built in 2001. Madrid has the smallest railway route with only 11 km. Again, Lisbon railway is used by more than 1900 million passengers per yearyears which makes it the busiest railway. Stockholm and Paris have the next two busiest railway systemstwo other busy railway systems which are used by 1191 million and 775 million travellersmillion of travellers per year. Finally, Rome, Madrid and Berlin railroads are used by comparatively few passengerscomparatively fewer commuters, belowbellow 100 million per year.
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response’s strongest feature is its clear overview and generally accurate selection of the main route and passenger figures. Its main limitation is precision: Rome is incorrectly grouped with cities serving fewer than 100 million passengers, while several awkward word choices and grammatical slips reduce polish. Prioritise checking every comparison against the charts and using standard railway vocabulary in well-controlled sentences.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
A clear overview and most key route and passenger comparisons are accurate, although Rome actually carries 144 million passengers rather than fewer than 100 million.
Check each grouped comparison against the charts and distinguish Rome from Madrid and Berlin in the final passenger summary.
Coherence and Cohesion
The report progresses logically from route length and opening dates to passenger numbers, though the single-block presentation and repeated linking are somewhat mechanical.
Use separate detail paragraphs for the two charts and replace repetitive transitions with clearer comparative grouping.
Lexical Resource
The response uses enough topic vocabulary to describe the data, but several choices are inaccurate or awkward, including locomotive operation, rain tracks, and covering up above.
Use precise collocations such as railway system, route length, and carries passengers, while proofreading spelling and plural forms.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex structures communicates the comparisons clearly, but errors in sentence openings, agreement, articles, and plural forms recur.
Review sentence boundaries and noun phrases, especially expressions such as passengers per year and the latest system, to improve control.
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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.