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Writing Academic Task 1 Band 9.0 Example

Original task prompt, user essay, band score, and related examples in the same report workspace.

217 words AcademicTask 1Line Graph
Task 1

Illustrative target band for this original model answer.

Plan your answer

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Ideas to explore

  • The coast grows overall despite a small dip between 1987 and 1992, then finishes with the highest visitor total.
  • The lakes show the largest fluctuation: a sharp rise to a 2002 peak followed by a substantial fall.
  • The mountains remain the least visited area at the end, but their numbers increase gradually rather than decline.

Suggested structure

  1. Introduce the graph, its subject, locations and time period.
  2. Give an overview of the broad trends, the lakes’ peak and the final ranking.
  3. Describe the coast’s starting point, brief decline and subsequent rise.
  4. Compare the mountains’ steady increase with the lakes’ rise and later fall.
Useful vocabulary & examples
rose steadily
increased gradually over a period

Visitor numbers for the mountains rose steadily from about 20,000 to 35,000.

peaked at
reached the highest point

The number of visitors to the lakes peaked at approximately 75,000 in 2002.

fell to
decreased and reached a particular level

The lakes’ figure fell to around 50,000 by 2007.

ended as the most popular destination
had the highest visitor figure at the end of the period

The coast ended as the most popular destination, at about 75,000 visitors.

Task Prompt

The graph below shows the number of overseas visitors to three different areas in a European country between 1987 and 2007 Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant
IELTS Writing Task 1 visual

User Essay Analysis

Review the public answer with report-style highlights.

Band 9.0

The line graph presents data regarding the number of overseas visitors to three distinct regions – the coast, mountains, and lakes – in a European country over a 20-year period, from 1987 to 2007. Overall, the coast consistently attracted the highest number of visitors throughout the two decades, in contrast to the mountains, which experienced a particularly modest increase. However, this ranking was not uninterrupted: the lakes overtook the coast in 2002, when their figure peaked at approximately 75,000, compared with about 65,000 for the coast.

In 1987, coastal areas received around 40,000 visitors, twice the figure for the mountains (20,000) and four times that for the lakes (10,000). The coastal total dipped slightly to roughly 35,000 in 1992, before rising steadily to about 50,000 in 1997 and 75,000 by 2007. The mountains followed a much flatter course, climbing from 20,000 to 30,000 between 1987 and 1997, remaining level until 2002, and ending at approximately 35,000.

By contrast, lake visits rose rapidly from 10,000 to 40,000 over the first ten years, then surged to a high of around 75,000 in 2002. This was followed by a fall to 50,000 in 2007, leaving the lakes second to the coast at the end of the period.

Targeted Improvement Tips

1
Revise the overview to say the coast had the most visitors in most years, while the lakes briefly led in 2002.
2
Keep units explicit in key comparisons: report the figures as visitor numbers in thousands, rather than leaving the reader to infer what “their figure” refers to.
3
Check the graph year by year before writing trend summaries, especially where one line crosses another; here the lakes pass the coast by 2002 and finish below it in 2007.

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