Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-11-13

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

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.

SOUTHWEST AIRPORT

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The plans illustrate the site of an airport now and how it will look after redevelopment next year.

Overall, from being a plain to becoming a modern airport with added new features including sky train.

The top of the site will be a huge improvement, from being a walkway with 8 gates converted to a sky train with 18 gates.

On the northwestern part of the map will have shops, which is below the security, passport control, and customs. There are two rooms and 1 door with different purposes. One room is the departures, which where people check-in and infront of it is a cafe. The second room will be for clients' arrival.

The future plan will be modernized. The departure room will have bag drop, cafe and check-in. The second room will have another cafe, below it is the ATM, beside the car hire for easier access to public cars.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You identify the main change in the concourse, noting that it expands from eight gates to eighteen and gains a sky train, and you mention several new facilities. However, the overview is unclear (“from being a plain to becoming a modern airport”), and some locations are inaccurate or insufficiently described: the shops are beside the concourse, not simply below security and customs, while the existing departures and arrivals areas and their entrances are not clearly compared with the future layout. The response contains 136 words, below the 150-word minimum; 15 words copied from the task prompt were excluded from the count. Develop the comparison by explaining what stays, moves, or is added in each terminal area, and give a clearer overview of the major changes.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has separate paragraphs and a broadly sensible order: an introduction, an overview, the current arrangement, and future changes. This gives the reader some structure. However, progression is not consistently clear, and several references are difficult to follow. For example, “The top of the site” and “the northwestern part” do not clearly connect the concourse and terminal features, while “There are two rooms” and “The second room” make the airport areas sound like rooms rather than clearly identified sections. The final paragraph also lists facilities without explaining their positions in relation to one another. Use a more systematic route through the plan—concourse first, then departures and arrivals—and use clear location links such as “to the west of” and “adjacent to”.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant vocabulary for describing airport facilities, including “gates,” “walkway,” “bag drop,” “ATM,” and “car hire,” so the main subject is generally understandable. There are also attempts at more descriptive wording, such as “modernized” and “easier access.” However, some choices are imprecise or unnatural for a map report: “from being a plain” does not express the intended contrast clearly, “clients’ arrival” is unsuitable for passengers arriving at an airport, and “public cars” does not accurately describe car-hire services. Repetition of “room” also limits precision. Build a more exact range of location and change vocabulary, for example “terminal area,” “concourse,” “is relocated,” and “is added,” and avoid claims about convenience unless the plan supports them.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt a mixture of simple statements and longer structures, including “The future plan will be modernized” and a sentence describing the café and ATM. However, control is uneven, and some sentence patterns are incomplete or faulty. “Overall, from being a plain to becoming a modern airport…” is a fragment, while “On the northwestern part of the map will have shops” lacks a clear grammatical subject. In “One room is the departures, which where people check-in,” the relative clause is incorrectly formed. Tense and sentence construction also need attention when distinguishing the current plan from the future one. Practise complete subject–verb sentences and use consistent forms such as “The current terminal has…” and “The redeveloped terminal will include…”.

See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.

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