Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-09-19

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The take below gives information about the underground railway systems in six cities.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Underground Railway Systems

City	Date opened	Kilometers of route	Passengers per year (in millions)
London	1863	394	775
Paris	1900	199	1191
Tokyo	1927	155	1927
Washington DC	1976	126	144
Kyoto	1981	11	45
Los Angeles	2001	28	50

Student answer (Band 4.5)

The table chart illustrates the information about the undercover railway system in six cities.

Overall, first of all the six cities are London, Paris, Tokyo, Washington Dc, Kyoto, Los Angeles. In these cities every city have owned open date and every city has different kilometers of route and also had a every city has different passenges per year (in millions).

London is the first city which has opened in 1863 and the route of this city is 394 kilometers aand at the end of the passengers per year in the london is 775

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0

The student has failed to meet the minimum word count requirement of 150 words, producing only 93 words. Consequently, the response remains severely underdeveloped. While the student attempts to summarise the table by mentioning the cities, opening dates, routes, and passenger numbers, the data is incomplete and abruptly cut off. Only London is partially detailed before the writing ends prematurely. Because the response is significantly under-length and lacks a comprehensive overview or adequate comparisons across all six cities, it falls well short of the requirements for higher bands and heavily penalises the task achievement score.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 4.0

The organisation of the text is highly problematic. The response consists of just three very short paragraphs, and the overall progression is disrupted by repetitive phrasing, such as 'every city have owned open date and every city has different kilometers'. Cohesive devices are basic and sometimes misused, as seen in the transition 'and at the end of the passengers per year'. Paragraphing is inadequate for an academic report, as the text breaks off abruptly without a concluding summary or logical flow connecting the various data points.

Lexical Resource — Band 4.5

The lexical range used by the student is extremely limited and repetitive. Words such as 'city', 'opened', 'route', and 'passengers' are repeated constantly due to the lack of vocabulary alternatives. There are also awkward lexical choices and inaccuracies, such as 'undercover railway system' instead of 'underground railway system' and 'owned open date' instead of 'opening date'. While the vocabulary is generally simple enough to understand basic concepts, it is insufficient to allow for flexibility or precision required for higher academic bands.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.5

The grammatical structures are very basic and repetitive, relying on simple compound sentences joined by coordinating conjunctions like 'and'. There are several noticeable grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement issues such as 'every city have owned' and prepositional errors like 'at the end of the passengers per year in the london'. Punctuation is also faulty, with missing full stops and incomplete clauses at the end of the text. The range of structures is limited and frequent errors reduce overall clarity.

See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.

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