Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-09-20
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 5.5)
The table compres the underground railway station in terms of opening date route length and annual passengers per year overall london is the oldest and has longest route while kyoto hads shortest route in contrast tokyo carries highest passengers per year despite having relatively short route londonopend in 1863 more than 30 years before paris it has 394 kilometers of route and serves 775 passengers per year paris second system has about half lenght of london at 199 km but carries more passengers at 1191 million tokyo open in 1927 has 155 km and carries 1927 million passengers per year this is almost 13 times more than washington dc which open in 1976 has 126 km of route and carriers 144 million passengers the two smallest route are kyoto and los angeles opened in 1981 and 2001 which has 11km of route and other has 28 km of route both carries 45 and 50 million passengers per year
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 6.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0
The student successfully identifies and reports the main features of the underground railway systems across the six cities, making relevant comparisons such as noting that London is the oldest with the longest route while Tokyo carries the highest number of annual passengers. Key data points like opening dates, route lengths, and passenger numbers are accurately cited from the table. However, the response lacks clear paragraphing, presenting the entire body as a single dense block of text, which slightly impacts the overall organization. Despite this, all parts of the prompt are addressed adequately, earning a solid band score for this criterion.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0
Coherence and cohesion are hindered by the complete absence of paragraph breaks and a severe lack of punctuation, such as missing capital letters and periods. The text runs together as a continuous block of sentences linked mainly by spaces and occasional conjunctions. While some logical progression is attempted by moving chronologically or comparing cities, the lack of mechanical formatting makes the text difficult to follow. Cohesive devices are minimal and rudimentary. Consequently, referencing and logical transitions between ideas are faulty and mechanical, aligning closely with the band 5 descriptors.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary range for the task, successfully incorporating specific terms related to the prompt such as 'opening date', 'route length', and 'annual passengers'. There are attempts to use less common comparative vocabulary like 'in contrast', 'highest passengers', and 'almost 13 times more'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors, such as 'compres' instead of 'compares', 'hads' instead of 'has', and 'open' instead of 'opened'. These errors do not completely impede communication, but they restrict the lexical score to a band 5.5.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, incorporating relative clauses and comparative forms such as 'paris second system has about half lenght of london at 199 km but carries more passengers'. However, grammatical accuracy is severely affected by the complete lack of punctuation and capitalization throughout the entire response. Run-on sentences, missing articles, and verb tense inconsistencies are frequent, for example writing 'londonopend in 1863' and 'which has 11km of route and other has 28 km of route'. These frequent errors place the performance firmly in the band 5 category.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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