IELTS Academic Writing Task 1 with model answer

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

The chart below shows the number of travellers using three major airports in New York City between 1995 and 2000.

Airport Visitors, 1995-2000 (Millions of passengers per year)

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

Write at least 150 Words.

Model Answer:

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The bar chart illustrates the total annual number of passengers visiting three airports, namely: John F Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark, in New York City over the period of 6 years, from 1995 to 2000. The number of people is measured in millions.

Overall, it is clearly noticeable that LaGuardia received the vast majority of visitors every year except 1997 when John F Kennedy outperformed its counterparts. 

It is apparent that the trend was (use past tense when the dates are in the past) upward in LaGuardia, which experienced nearly 35 million passengers in 1995. Then it gradually increased and almost doubled at the end of the period.

Likewise, the passengers who visited Newark were just 15 million in the beginning. Afterwards, the number of visitors it significantly rose three folds times in 1998 and plateaued at 42 million approximately in the following years.

In contrast, John F Kennedy, which witnessed a modest 25 million visitors in 1995, exceeded its counterparts  with  around 46 million in 1997. Despite a considerable decline in the successive years, it touched 45 million at the end.

Total Words: 168

Task Achievement: 7

Coherence & Cohesion: 8

Lexical resources: 7

Grammar: 8

Overall Score: Band 7.5

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