Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-10-01

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 illustartes the data of underground railway network of six cities of different nations.

Overall, it is evident that London established first underground network among listed all cities, whereas Los Angeles build late than all cities. Although, London had highest route of railway line, the highest amount of passengers travelled in Tokyo. While kyoto had lowest number of pessengers and shortest route of railway network.

London established underground network in 1863, it had the longest network of 394 kilometers and 775 millions people travelled in underground train. While, Tokyo had approximately half long route of railway line, 1927 millions citizens used this transportation per year make it highest used railway network among all the listed cities.

Whereas Paris and Washington DC had 199 and 126 kilometers long network respectively.

Kyoto build shortest railway line of 11 kilometers long and it had lowest pessengers travelled in year at around 45 millions per year. Furthermore, Los Angeles started underground train facilities in 2001, it had 28 kilometers of route where 50 millions travellers used the facility.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the task by selecting and reporting the main features of the underground railway systems, making relevant comparisons across the cities. For instance, the overview correctly highlights that London established the first network while Los Angeles built its network last. However, some areas are more fully developed than others, leading to an uneven treatment of the data. While the details for London and Tokyo are reasonably well elaborated, the description for cities like Paris and Washington DC is brief and lacks comparative depth, merely listing their route lengths without deeper integration. This places the response in the target band, as it presents a clear overview and main trends, but contains some under-developed ideas.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The text demonstrates a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt to group information logically by city and chronology. The response is divided into paragraphs, starting with an introduction and an overview, followed by body paragraphs detailing specific data. However, cohesion is sometimes faulty or mechanical. For example, transitional phrases like 'Although, London had highest route...' and 'While kyoto had lowest number...' are punctuated incorrectly or used as sentence fragments rather than dependent clauses. Furthermore, referencing and logical progression occasionally falter between sentences, creating a slightly disjointed flow that prevents the writing from achieving a higher level of organization.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully incorporating terms related to transportation and statistics such as 'network', 'route', 'transportation', and 'passengers'. There are, however, several spelling and word-choice errors, such as 'illustartes' instead of 'illustrates', 'pessengers' instead of 'passengers', and awkward phrasing like 'build late than all cities' instead of 'was built later than all the other cities'. Less common vocabulary is attempted with some inaccuracy, though these lexical errors do not significantly impede communication, making the vocabulary range minimally sufficient and appropriate for this level.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response displays a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting structures such as subordinate clauses introduced by 'while' and 'although'. However, there are frequent errors in grammar and punctuation, particularly regarding verb forms, tense consistency, and missing articles. Examples include 'London established first underground network' (missing the article 'the'), 'Los Angeles build late' (incorrect tense/form for 'was built later'), and comma splices or fragment sentences such as 'London established underground network in 1863, it had the longest network...'. While these errors do not completely obscure the meaning, they persist throughout the text and demonstrate limited control over complex syntactic structures.

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