Follow the journey from origin to destination
Transport texts can describe a journey at several scales: one crossing, a connection, or the entire trip. A change that improves one stage may create a problem elsewhere. This lesson asks you to follow travellers’ complete journeys while keeping a proposed timetable separate from a tested service.
Sketch the fictional route as three stages: island connection, ferry crossing and mainland connection. Add the purpose of the journey when the passage gives it. For a question about reliability or usefulness, find the relevant complete journey rather than choosing whichever sailing sounds fastest. Treat survey responses as evidence from respondents, not automatically from every resident.
This is ORIGINAL IELTS-style practice written for this site. It is not an answer key to a Cambridge passage or another named published test. The short lesson develops evidence-finding skills; it is not a complete IELTS test and cannot estimate your band. Read the passage before opening any answer reveal.
- Skim once and give each paragraph a short purpose label in your own words.
- Read each task instruction, then mark the exact evidence for your answer. Keep uncertainty visible instead of guessing silently.
- Check the explanation after answering. If your answer was correct for the wrong reason, record the reasoning error too.
Original passage: The ferry that arrived too late
Paragraph A gives sourced context from Transport Scotland. The island, service, survey and timetable proposals in paragraphs B–E are fictional and are not travel information.
A. An island transport system is more than a vessel crossing water. Transport Scotland’s Islands Connectivity Plan considers ferry services alongside other transport modes, and its published approach emphasises consultation about the needs of people and places. This broader view provides a setting for the fictional island of Rowan Isle. Its council began reviewing a ferry timetable after residents explained that a crossing could arrive on time while still failing to connect with the mainland service needed to complete their journeys.
B. The first proposal shortened the crossing slightly by removing an intermediate stop. At a public meeting, several residents welcomed the idea. Others pointed out that the revised arrival would still miss the morning coach. Planner Nia asked the team to compare complete journeys, including waiting at the mainland terminal. She kept crossing time in the report but added arrival at the final destination. This revealed why a small improvement at sea did not necessarily make the trip useful for someone with a fixed appointment.
C. To understand demand, the council circulated an online survey and placed paper copies in the island shop. The online replies arrived quickly, but the paper copies included comments from residents who rarely used the booking website. The team recorded how each response had been collected. It did not assume either group represented the whole island. Several respondents described journeys they had decided not to make, information that ticket sales alone could not reveal because no booking had been completed.
D. A second proposal moved one sailing earlier and adjusted the connecting island bus. The council presented it as a trial option, not a permanent decision. Shopkeepers asked about deliveries, while regular foot passengers focused on the coach connection. Nia listed these needs separately rather than merging them into a single popularity total. The report also distinguished a request for a convenient departure from a need to reach a destination by a particular time. Both mattered, but they raised different planning questions.
E. Before choosing a timetable, the team proposed checking whether the mainland operator could support the intended connection. It also planned a review that would record missed connections as well as ferry punctuality. A ferry could meet its own schedule without delivering a dependable end-to-end journey. For Nia, success meant understanding which problem a change solved and which problems remained. The review did not promise that every traveller would get an ideal service, but it made the trade-offs visible before the council selected a trial.
Questions 1–9
Answer only from the passage. Outside knowledge may help you understand a topic, but it cannot fill a gap in the writer’s account.
Choose TRUE if the statement agrees with the passage, FALSE if it contradicts the passage, or NOT GIVEN if the passage does not decide it.
Complete each sentence with NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS copied exactly from the passage.
Choose the paragraph, A–E, that contains the specified information. You may use a letter more than once.
Choose the one best answer, A, B, C or D.
- A. To conceal the length of the ferry crossing.
- B. To assess whether the complete trip met the traveller’s needs.
- C. To prove that all islanders had identical schedules.
- D. To avoid consulting the mainland transport operator.
- A. A ferry’s punctuality guarantees every onward connection.
- B. Timetables are unnecessary when travellers have appointments.
- C. Punctuality must be considered alongside the wider journey.
- D. Missed connections occur only when a ferry arrives late.
Answers with passage evidence
Open these after attempting all nine questions. The paragraph references let you check each judgement against the original wording rather than trusting a bare key.
1. Reveal answer and explanation
TRUE. Paragraph B explicitly links the shorter crossing to removing an intermediate stop. This is a proposed change in the fictional review. It does not establish that the change was implemented or that every resident supported it.
2. Reveal answer and explanation
FALSE. Paragraph B says the revised arrival would still miss the coach. A faster crossing is therefore not enough to produce the needed connection. The question reverses the passage’s central example of a limited improvement.
3. Reveal answer and explanation
NOT GIVEN. Paragraph C compares response speed and the kinds of comments received, but gives no totals by channel. The fact that online replies arrived quickly does not establish whether their final number was greater or smaller.
4. Reveal answer and explanation
island shop. Paragraph C identifies the island shop. Both words fit the limit and locate the paper copies precisely. The booking website is mentioned as something some respondents rarely used, not as the source of the paper forms.
5. Reveal answer and explanation
missed connections. Paragraph E specifies missed connections. This measure checks the wider journey. Writing “crossing time” would repeat a narrower stage of the trip rather than the additional outcome requested by the question.
6. Reveal answer and explanation
C. Paragraph C describes trips respondents decided not to make. Because there was no completed booking, ticket sales could not reveal those intentions. The survey provides a different kind of evidence, not simply another count of passengers carried.
7. Reveal answer and explanation
D. Paragraph D separates a convenient departure from reaching a destination by a specific time. The difference matters because the second need involves the full journey and a deadline, rather than preference for a sailing time alone.
8. Reveal answer and explanation
B. Paragraph B shows that a shorter crossing may still leave a traveller waiting for a missed connection. The additional measure relates the service to the purpose of the whole trip, without discarding crossing time as irrelevant.
9. Reveal answer and explanation
C. Paragraph E distinguishes a ferry meeting its own timetable from a dependable end-to-end journey. Punctuality remains useful, but alone it cannot show whether connections worked. The text does not claim that punctuality should be ignored.
Rewrite without changing the claim
Preserve the two scales of a journey in your rewrite. A statement about one stage should not become a claim about every traveller’s final arrival.
Rewrite: “A ferry could meet its own schedule without delivering a dependable end-to-end journey.” Use “even if”.
Compare a possible rewrite
Even if the ferry ran on time, the complete journey could still be unreliable because an onward connection might not work.
This keeps the possibility expressed by “could” and the distinction between a sailing and the whole trip. “The ferry always missed its schedule” contradicts the example. “Every onward connection failed” replaces a limited possibility with an unsupported universal result.
There is more than one good rewrite. Check meaning before vocabulary: keep the same people, time, comparison, and degree of certainty. A sophisticated synonym is a poor choice if it changes what the passage claims. This writing extension is for learning; the sentence-completion questions above still require exact words from the passage.
Make the next attempt more accurate
If you selected the fastest-sounding option, underline the destination and deadline instead. A transport question may ask about access, coverage or reliability rather than speed. Also check whether you treated the second proposal as a decision: paragraph D calls it a trial option, and E still describes checks before a timetable is chosen.
Keep a three-part error note: the answer you chose, the words you overlooked, and one action for next time. For a NOT GIVEN error, name the missing information. For a completion error, check the word limit and grammar. For a multiple-choice error, explain why the strongest distractor fails, rather than only repeating the correct option.
Continue with matching features, table completion, General Training reading.
Sources and scope
Transport Scotland provides the real-world context of ferry services, connecting modes and consultation. Rowan Isle, its routes and all proposals are fictional. No actual sailing time, fare, booking condition or current operational recommendation appears here.
- Transport Scotland: Islands Connectivity Plan: A broader transport-connectivity approach and consultation about island needs.
Public factual sources checked on 15 October 2026. The passage wording, teaching scenario, questions and explanations are original. Fictional people, decisions and results are not evidence about real organisations or populations.