Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-10-17

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 tabular chart depicts below the ground railway station across six cities. The data is calibrated in numbers.

looking from an overall perspective, it is readily apparent that maximum passengers in london prefered the railways, neverthelss, least kilometers and passengers from Kyoto were interested in using this underground commutation.

To begin with,in 1863, 393 kms were covered by 775 people from london. Moreover,in 1900 a significant number of people used this tram system for commutation. Although, 126 kms were covered by 144 passengers from US.

Not only 11 people from Kyoto prefered using this , but also 28 kms were covered by 50 million passengers from los Angeles.

Moving to further details, in 1976,126 kms were travelled by 144 million people from Washington DC. while 1927 million Japanese travelled using 155 kilometers of route . 199 kms were covered by Japanese people in 1976. moreover, there was a surge in the ownership.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0

The response makes an attempt to describe the table and includes some relevant figures, such as the opening years and route lengths for London and Washington, as well as passenger totals for Tokyo. However, it responds only minimally to the task because several figures are inaccurate or assigned to the wrong city: London’s route is 394 km, not 393, and the claim that Kyoto had the fewest kilometres and passengers is not clearly reported with the correct values. The overview is also misleading: London did not have the most passengers; Tokyo did. Important comparisons, including London’s longest route and Tokyo’s highest annual passenger use, are not accurately summarised. Focus on selecting the true extremes and comparing the cities using correctly matched data.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.0

There is an attempt to organise the response with an overview followed by further details, and phrases such as “To begin with” and “Moving to further details” signal transitions. However, the information is not arranged coherently: the paragraph moves between cities and years without a clear comparison, and some details are repeated, such as Washington’s figures appearing twice. The final sentence about “a surge in the ownership” is unrelated to the table and leaves the report without a clear conclusion. Linking words such as “Although” and “Not only…but also” do not express the relationships between the data accurately. Group the cities by meaningful contrasts, such as older versus newer systems or highest versus lowest usage, and keep each figure beside its city.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The response uses some topic-related vocabulary, including “tabular chart,” “passengers,” “route,” and “commutation,” showing an attempt to describe transport data. However, the range is limited and several choices are inaccurate or unnatural for this task. “Railway station” refers to a station rather than a railway system, “tram system” is not supported by the table, and “ownership” does not describe passenger use. Repeated use of “covered” also makes the descriptions imprecise. Spelling errors such as “prefered” and “neverthelss,” along with inconsistent capitalisation of city names, reduce clarity. Prefer standard data-reporting language and use terms such as “annual passenger numbers,” “route length,” and “carried” only where they accurately describe the figures.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response attempts a few complex structures, including “Although…” and “Not only…but also…,” but these are often faulty or incomplete, and most sentences rely on basic patterns. Errors in sentence boundaries and punctuation are frequent: for example, “looking from an overall perspective” begins with a lowercase letter, while “Washington DC. while” incorrectly separates a sentence. There are also problems with articles and sentence construction, as in “the below the ground railway station,” and the opening description does not form a clear grammatical sentence. These issues sometimes make the relationships between figures difficult to follow. Practise writing short, complete comparisons first, then combine them with accurate clauses and consistent punctuation.

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

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