Writing Task 1: Line Graph: Question 10
Syllabus W.task1
The line graph below shows international tourist arrivals, in thousands, to three regions of the country of Palmara (the Northern Coast, the Southern Coast and the Capital City) between 1995 and 2020.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant. Write at least 150 words.
| Year | Northern Coast (thousands) | Southern Coast (thousands) | Capital City (thousands) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1995 | 150 | 90 | 200 |
| 2000 | 220 | 130 | 260 |
| 2005 | 310 | 200 | 300 |
| 2010 | 380 | 310 | 340 |
| 2015 | 340 | 420 | 380 |
| 2020 | 300 | 480 | 300 |
The graph tracks three lines from 1995 to 2020: the Capital City leads at the start and rises steadily to a peak in 2015 before falling back sharply; the Northern Coast rises to an earlier peak in 2010 and then declines; and the Southern Coast starts lowest of the three but rises continuously across the whole period, overtaking both other regions to become the most visited by 2020.
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Worked solution
Examiner notes: why this is a band 9 response
Task Achievement
The overview isolates exactly the feature that makes this graph worth reporting on: a change in leadership between regions, not simply three lines rising or falling. The body paragraphs then track each region’s individual turning point with precision (noting that the Northern Coast peaked in 2010 while the Capital City kept rising for a further five years to an identical peak in 2015, before both fell back to converge at the same 2020 figure) a level of detail only achievable by reading the graph across its full length rather than just its endpoints.
Coherence & Cohesion
Time-based paragraphing (“in 1995… then grew for fifteen years… then fell back…”) gives the response a clear chronological backbone, while phrases such as “ahead of,” “in contrast,” and “the most popular of the three” tie the three regions together for direct comparison rather than treating them as three separate mini-reports.
Lexical Resource
A wide range of precise vocabulary for describing change and ranking is used without repetition: “overtook,” “peaked,” “converging,” “fell back,” “rose continuously,” “the most popular of the three.” The phrase “at an identical 380 thousand” shows the ability to express a striking coincidence in the data precisely and economically.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
The response uses a long, accurately controlled colon-introduced sentence with a “while” clause to contrast the two regions’ peaks in a single statement, alongside present-participle phrases (“converging at 300 thousand each,” “overtaking both other regions”) that add detail efficiently without a string of short, simple sentences, all applied with full grammatical control.
Common pitfalls specific to this task
See commonMistakes above: the most damaging is comparing only the first and last years, since doing so misses the fact that the Capital City’s true peak came in 2015, five years after the Northern Coast’s. A mid-period feature that a genuinely accurate summary must capture.