The Table Below Gives Information About the Underground Railway Systems in Six Cities
Written by Lilie
7.5 in Academic Writing
June 14, 2021
The table 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.
This essay question is from Cambridge IELTS 5 Test 4 Writing Task 1.
Underground Railway Systems
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Sample Essay
The table presents data on the underground railway networks in six cities.
Overall, the three oldest systems, in London, Paris and Tokyo, have longer routes and carry many more passengers every year than the three in Washington DC, Kyoto and Los Angeles.
Opening in 1863 and covering 394 kilometers, London’s is the oldest and longest of the systems in the six cities. Railway systems opened in Paris in 1900 and Tokyo in 1927. Even though they are less than 200 kilometers long, they have the largest annual passenger numbers, at 1927 million for Tokyo and 1191 million for Paris.
Kyoto and Los Angeles were the last two of these cities to have their own railway networks. These two networks also have the shortest routes, at 11 and 28 kilometers respectively, and are used by the smallest numbers of passengers per year, at 45 and 50 million respectively. Compared with the two networks mentioned above, the one in Washington DC is relatively long, at 126 kilometers, and has a relatively large yearly passenger count, at 144 million. (176 Words)
How to Write the Overview
Version 2 is better than Version 1 because it covers all six cities, whereas Version 1 only mentions 2 of them.
Overall, while London’s is the oldest and the longest of the systems in the six cities, Tokyo’s has the largest annual passenger numbers. 👎👎👎
Overall, the three oldest systems, in London, Paris and Tokyo, have longer routes and carry many more passengers every year than the three in Washington DC, Kyoto and Los Angeles. 👍👍👍
How to Report the Biggest Numbers
You could say, for example, the railway system in Tokyo has largest yearly passenger numbers and the one in Paris has the second largest. But when there is a lot of data, it’s better to group them together and simply say that railway systems in Tokyo and Paris have the largest passenger numbers. You could also use this method to report Kyoto and Los Angeles. Note I didn’t say that which one is the smallest and which one is the second smallest. I simply said they both are the smallest.
How to Group Data
This chart has a lot of data. If you describe the six cities one by one, you may end up writing too many words. Note how I grouped Paris and Tokyo together in the third paragraph, and Kyoto and Los Angeles together in the fourth paragraph.
13 CommentsLeave A Comment
hi, why do you use present perfect instead of past perfect, Ex: have longer routs
Lilie, could I use passengers per year per kilometer of track to compare these six cities? And in this comparison, Tokyo would be the highest, making it the first to be mentioned, followed by the others…
Can i use present perfect tense? such as, London has transported 775 million passengers
No, the last column shows passengers PER YEAR.
London’s system has the longest routes. ?
or
London’s system has the longest route. ?
Use the singular.
Dear Lilie, in the last sentence, as you made a comparison between the two cities and Washington DC, should we use the comparative relatives, means that “longer” and “larger” instead of “long” and “large”?
Best regards
Hi Masoud, words like “relatively” or “comparatively” shouldn’t be used with a comparative adjective like “longer”.
I think we could add a sentence below about the Washington DC (following the last sentence) ;
“…, which means the system transports one million people per one kilometer per year.”
Hey Lilie, for London, Paris and Tokyo’s railway systems, can I use “earliest” to represent the opening dates in overall paragraph?
Hi, “first” is way better. See the comparison here.
The table provides information about the underground railway systems in cities of London, Paris , Tokyo , Washington DC , Kyoto ,Los Angeles .Overall, it is evident that Tokyo has the most passengers per year than all of the cities while Kyoto has the least amount of passengers.
Tokyo was opened in 1927 with the 155 kilometres of route and it has the highest amount of passengers of 1927 millions. Kyoto was opened in 1981 and it has only 11 kilometers and resulted in only 45 being the least millions of travellers . The earliest underground railway station was opened in 1863 in London .The route of London was 394 being the highest route among all these cities and they made 775 millions which was the third in the six cities . Later , Paris was opened in 1900 , with 199 kilometers and they had the second highest passengers of about 1191.
The Washington DC was opened in 11976 and became the first one in United States .It has 126 kilometres of route and got 144 millions in a year .After that ,Los Angeles system was opened in 2001 and being the latest in all the cities and it has 28 kilometers and resulted 50 millions passengers per year.
The table below illustrates data about underground railway infrastructure in six cities, namely London, Paris, Tokyo, W DC, Kyoto, and Los Angeles.
Overall, it is clear that the first city with a railroad is London and the last one is Los Angeles. Additionally, the most extended rail belongs to London, but the shortest one is in Kyoto. However, most passengers for underground trains are in Tokyo, and the smallest ones are in Kyoto.
In terms of the opening date, London was the first city to build railway transportation under the ground in 1863, while Los Angeles used it from 2001, and the four remaining cities constructed their systems in the 19th century. London has 394 Km of underground railroad whereas Kyoto and Los Angeles have just 11 Km and 28 Km, respectively and other cities have underground railroads less than 200Km.
Regarding the number of passengers, 1927 millions of citizens in Tokyo and 1191 millions of persons in Paris tend to use underground trains annually; by contrast, in Kyoto and Los Angeles, this number is just 45 and 50, in order.