The two maps below show road access to a city hospital in 2007 and in 2010.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
This essay question is from Cambridge IELTS 13 Test 1 Writing Task 1.
Sample Essay
The two maps display how road access to a city hospital had changed by 2010 compared with 2007.
Overall, there had not been many changes made, except two new roundabouts, a new car park, and the replacement of the bus stops by a bus station.
Surrounding the hospital was Ring Road, which was connected to City Road by Hospital Road. By 2010, two roundabouts had been added, at the junctions of Hospital Road with Ring Road and with City Road respectively.
There was a car park for staff and the public on the southeast side of Ring Road in 2007. However, by 2010, it had become a staff-only car park, and a new public one had been built on the east side of this road.
Furthermore, the bus stops at both sides of Hospital Road had been replaced by a large bus station with direct access to the two roundabouts. (151 Words)
Ring Road or ring road
For the purposes of this diagram, I would assume that the streets are literally named “Ring Road”, “Hospital Road”, “City Road”, etc. That is to say, These are proper nouns. Proper nouns need to be capitalized and shouldn’t be used with articles. So, it should be “Ring Road”, not “the Ring Road”.
How to Paraphrase the Question Statement
The key term “road access” has no good synonyms, so don’t try to change it. Instead, we can use a completely different construction.
The original uses a noun phrase.
We can instead use a “how” clause.
Tense
When describing the changes, I used the past perfect instead of the past simple. This is because all we have is two maps, one from 2007 and one from 2010, and at some time in the intervening period, the layout changed. It could have happened in late 2007, in 2008 or 2009, or in early 2010. If we say “in 2010 the car park became staff-only”, it means the change happened in 2010. That’s why I used the past perfect with ‘by 2010’: by 2010 the car park had become staff-only.
35 CommentsLeave A Comment
Such a logical answer. Appreciate your effort. Love from Pakistan
Thanks Lilie. Really helpful
Hi Lilie
Thanks for your wonderful writing.
I have two questions.
“There had not been many changes”; should it be corrected as “There have not been many changes”? Please comment.
In my answer, I identified significant changes in contrast to minor changes such as two new roundabouts with two dedicated exits to the new bus station by diverting buses completely from the Hospital Road allowing smooth traffic movement to the other vehicles. Furthermore, Ring road now has two entry points with the addition of new public car park.
Does this make sense?
Hi Karuna,
1, No, you need to use the past perfect “hadn’t been”, not the present perfect “haven’t been” because the second map is about the year 2010. However, you need to use the present perfect when describing the second map of this writing task.
2. I can argue that buses entered Hospital Road through those two “exits” so it’s inaccurate to say “diverting buses completely from the Hospital Road”.
I think it makes more sense to say that the two “entry points” were the entrances to the two car parks rather than the entrances to Ring Road but it’s my personal opinion.
Dear Lilie King
1. Thanks for your response. But there is little correction.
“Had been” is used to mean that something happened in the past and has already ended.
“Have/ has been” is used to mean that something began in the past and has lasted into the present time. So similar theory is applied for negative forms which are “had not been” and “have not been”.
“Had not been” – past perfect negative form and “Had not been” – present perfect negative form.
In your essay you are describing 2nd map (2010) “…there had not been many changes made…”which should be corrected as “…there have not been many changes made…” in to present perfect negative form as it is something began in the past and has lasted into the present time.
2. Immature student can argue that ‘buses can enter to Hospital trough two Exists’ which may be accepted by the Examiner as there is no write or wrong answers in the IELTS witing paper. However, it is very babyish argument. It is not possible for vehicles to enter to any connecting road without passing through circular area of roundabout. So, if buses need to enter to Hospital Roads, they must pass through the roundabout, but not merely through the two Exits.
Furthermore, as you’ve mentioned in your comment, it is not inaccurate to say two exits from two roundabout were made to divert busses completely from the Hospital road, because it is the whole purposes of building those two exits from two roundabouts. If not, they could have built a single (two way traffic) access road to the Bus Station as a cross road from the middle of the Hospital Road (T intersection).
Hi Silva, this essay was checked by a native speaker so there is no grammatical error. The past perfect is the right tense to use for the second map. You could argue for your Point 2 though.
My reply to your below comment on 01.03.2023.
Dear Lilie King
Thank you so much for taking your valuable time in reading and replying to my queries. Grammar issue is still not clear to me, but I will double check from another reliable source. BTW, native speakers do not always use correct form of English, alternatively, a good English teacher could help.
Once again thank you so much for your support and guidance to IELTS students and I will continue learn from your site. Cheers !
I m amazed with simplicity of your complex language
Glad you enjoyed the essay!
Hi , I really appreciate you for this awesome and practical answer😍❤️. I have a question: “The bus stops at the two sides of Hospital Road were replaced by a .. “ why is not “had been replaced” Instead of “were replaced” ? 🙏🏼
Yes, the past perfect is better. I corrected it. Thanks!
Hi, thanks for the great effort. My question is, why city hospital is not capitalized in the introductory paragraph? And if I want to mention it again in the essay shall I use the article “The” every time? I.e. The Ring Road that surrounds the City Hospital from all directions.
Hi, thanks for your comments. Have you noticed that the introductory text of the maps uses “a city hospital”? Here, “city hospital” is not a proper noun. That’s why it can be used with “a”: a city hospital. If you capitalize it, then it becomes a proper noun. No article is required with most proper nouns. You just say City Hospital, not the City Hospital. The same is true of Ring Road. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other concerns.
Hi Lilie. Your answers are so practical and also useful. Thank you for sharing.
Appreciate the kind words!😊💜
RING ROAD
Ring Road
ring Road
Which is correct when I use it in overall , body para 1 and 2
Hi, it should be “Ring Road”. For the purposes of this map, I would assume that the streets are literally named “Hospital Road”, “City Road”, “Ring Road”, etc. It’s not meant to be realistic.
Hi lilie. Can I just borrow your brain for few days.😅
I wish you could.😊
Thank you so much Lillie for this… actually i have one enquiry…can we write body paragraphs by writing bp1 of only 2007 and bp2 of 2010 ?
Hi, thanks for your question. Yes, you can definitely write like that.
The two maps below illustrate how a road access to city hospital had been improvised in 2010 as compared to 2007.
In general, it appears that there had not been many changes made, except two roundabouts,a new.public car park and a new bus station.
Firstly, in 2007 hospital was surrounding by a ring road which were connected to a city road by a hospital road.A public and staff car park was built on the southeast aide of ring road .Moreover, there was many bus stops in front of city hospital.
On the other hand, in 2010 many development appears.The car park had been changed into staff only car park and a new public car park is built on the east side of ring road.The bus stops had been replaced by a vary bus station which has access to two new roundabouts.The two new roundabouts had been made, at the junction of hospital road, with ring road , and with city road respectively.
The two maps display how road access to the city hospital has been improvised in 2010 compared to 2007.
Overall, roads near the city hospital had been constructed in a modern way by adding bus stops, roundabouts and separate parking facilities for the staff and public.
In 2007, there was a ring road around the city hospital. On the south side there was a particular way for a hospital. The hospital road had three bus stops on either side. Nearby the bus stop there was parking available for staff and public. There was a city road located on the south side of the hospital which was connected to the hospital road.
In 2010, the ring road around the city hospital remained unchanged however an east side of the hospital new separate parking place was built for the public. Bus stop had been demolished and two connected roundabouts had been built. West side of the hospital road one big bus station has been established which also connects to both roundabouts.
Thank you so much for posting this, very useful ❤️👏
Dear Lilie,
Hope you are doing well.
As usual, it was a great report, but I have one problem with “respectively” in the text.
We always use it when there are two things by two other things in a row. But, in that sentence, it was mentioned one thing that connected with other two things. So, it need not have been mentioned the “respectively”.
Please, correct me if I am wrong.
I already could not thank you enough for your helpful reports.
Best regards,
Masoud
Hi, thanks for the question. I understand what you were asking. Perhaps, you misread my sentence. In that sentence, I do have two things (two roundabouts) connecting with two other things.
That’s was really helpful for me . Thanks a lot . Such a great explanation and normal usefull vocabulary .
Thanks a lot.
🙏🙏🙏
Thanks for written this map nicely 💗 first I was confused how can I make this map.then I followed your written map .and I get some new sentence.. thanks 😊
Glad you found it helpful!
“…at the junctions of Hospital Road with the ring road and with City Road respectively…” why is ‘ring road’ written with lowercase while ‘City Road’ with capital letters?
I saw the road as a ring road (a road that is a ring). But you’re right. I should be consistent and assume the road is named “Ring Road”. Corrected it already. Thanks!
The two map illustrate how road, heading to a city hospital, changed over a 3 year period from 2007 to 2010.
Overall, it is clear that city hospital and roads still remained, while many changes took place in the intervening years. Bus stops have been converted into bus station and there were public car park and roundabouts added.
According to both maps, the most notable change is a separately new public car park was constructed on the east of the city hospital in 2010, which was only one area to park car for both staff and public before. The six bus stops that can be seen to the both sides of the hospital road in 2007, no longer existed by 2010, having been transformed into a single bus station on the west side of it. Meanwhile, two roundabouts, leading to the bus station, were be set up at the junctions of it. This was another significant transformation for the hospital road.
The given maps compares the transport facilities in a city hospital between 2007 and 2010.
At the first glance, it is clear that noticeable improvements have been made in terms of access by public transport and private vehicle.
It can be seen from the maps that city hospital located on the north side of the city road. The hospital road functions as an access road between main road and the ring road surrounding the hospital. In 2007, there were three bus stops on either side of the access road and a parking lot on the east side shared by personnel and visitors.
In 2010, roundabouts constructed on cross roads. Bus stops replaced with a large bus station on side of the hospital road, which had direct access to the roundabouts. Shared car park designated to stuff only, however, a new parking space allocated for the visitors on the east side of the hospital.
153 words