Southwest Airport Redevelopment Plans

The plans below show the site of an airport now and how it will look after redevelopment next year. Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

Annotated response

5 correction notes

The two maps illustrate the current layout of the Southwest Airport and its planned modifications .

In general, the airport is set for significant expansion and modernisation, with a substantial increase in facilities and improved passenger flow, particularly regarding gates and amenities for both arrivals and departures.

Currently, the airport features a single arrival and departure area, with eight gates served by two walkways. Amenities are somewhat limited, including only a café in the and nothing in the arrival area.

Next year, the redeveloped airport will undergo substantial transformation. The number of gates will more than double to eighteen, suggesting a much higher passenger capacity. A key addition will be an internal sky train, vastly improving connectivity within the expanded complex. New facilities are planned for departing passengers, including and . For arrivals, new amenities will encompass a café, ATMs, and a car hire facility, indicating a more comprehensive service offering.

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 8.0

This is a fluent, clearly structured comparison that captures the airport’s main expansion and most of its new facilities. Accurate language and logical grouping make the proposed redevelopment easy to understand. The main weakness is that some space is devoted to inferred benefits instead of visible layout changes. Describing where check-in and the departures café move would make the comparison more concrete and complete.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

Task Achievement

7.0

The response identifies the major expansion, increased gate numbers, sky train and new passenger amenities, but overlooks the relocation of check-in and the departures café while making claims about improved flow that the plans do not directly demonstrate.

Coherence and Cohesion

8.0

The introduction, overview and separate descriptions of the present and future airport create a clear progression, and the final paragraph groups new departure and arrival facilities effectively.

Lexical Resource

8.0

Vocabulary such as “redeveloped,” “amenities” and “connectivity” is varied and appropriate, although broad evaluative phrases such as “a more comprehensive service offering” are less precise than descriptions of the mapped changes.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

8.0

Sentences are consistently accurate, with effective future and passive forms, participial clauses and varied sentence lengths; the more detailed final paragraph remains grammatically clear.

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