Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-10-05

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 gives information about the underground railway systems in six cities, that are London, Paris, Tokyo, Washington DC, Kyoto, Los Angeles.The table lists the follwing features: date opened, kilometers of route and passengers per year(in millions).

The underground railway system that was opened first was in 1863, London and the underground railway system which was opened recently is in Los Angeles on 2001. The London station despite being the oldest has the longest route of 394 kilometers.The underground railway system with the shortest route is in the city of Kyoto opened in 1981 has a route of only 11 kilometers.

Moving on the station with the most passengers per year is the underground railway that oppend in Tokyo in 1927 having 1927 million passengers per year.The station with the least or the lowest amount of passengers per year is the station in Kyoto with 45 million passengers per year.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

Please note that the response is 10 words short of the 150-word minimum, as 10 words copied directly from the task prompt were not counted. The response addresses the task only partially. While it attempts to cover features such as the dates opened, route lengths, and passenger numbers, the information is limited and some key data points are missed or under-developed. For example, comparisons between cities are simplistic, and the overview lacks a clear summary of the overall trends. The selection of data lacks sufficient extension, keeping the response at a limited level of task fulfillment.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response presents an overall coherent arrangement with a clear paragraph structure dividing the introduction, opening dates and route lengths, and passenger volumes. However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes mechanical or faulty, such as in transitions like 'Moving on the station' where logical progression stumbles slightly. Paragraphing is used, but the internal connections between sentences could be smoother and more natural to guide the reader effortlessly through the data comparisons.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The writer uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully incorporating terms such as 'underground railway systems', 'passengers per year', and 'route lengths'. However, there are noticeable limitations and inaccuracies in word choice and spelling, such as 'follwing' and 'oppend'. Less common vocabulary is attempted with some errors, such as awkward phrasing when describing the city data, which occasionally causes mild difficulty or detracts from precision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

There is a limited range of sentence structures, and attempts at complex sentences are often faulty or punctuated incorrectly. For instance, sentences like 'The underground railway system that was opened first was in 1863, London' display awkward syntax and prepositional errors. Frequent errors in punctuation, missing commas, and run-on structures appear throughout the text, though they rarely completely obscure the core meaning, fitting the pattern of frequent grammatical errors at this level.

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

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