Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-08-18
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 6.5)
The diagram illustrates the plan of an airport now and how it will look after reconstruction in the following year.
Overall, the airport grew rapidly after redevelopment, and most of the development happened in the areas of expansion, like multiple terminal gates, sky train facilities and car hire depots. The renovations were more amenity-focused, with shops and services such as bag drops.
The southwest airport, before rebuilding the services and development, was limited, which only included minimal facilities, having a total of 8 gates for the entire airport, with only a walkway without any utilities. The departure and arrival gates were only 1.
Whereas after development, the resources grew sharply. The expansion of gates doubled to its original plan after remodelling, providing a sky train system that made transport easy by reaching the gates. In comparison, the departure and arrival gates were rebuilt twice to make travel faster, resulting in time savings. The ATM services and car hire depots are the new services provided for the passengers.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 6.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 7.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 6.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 6.0 |
| Overall | 6.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.5
The response covers the main features of the airport plans, identifying the key changes such as the expansion of gates and the addition of new facilities like the sky train and car hire depots. However, the analysis is somewhat imprecise. For instance, stating that gates 'doubled' is a good attempt at comparison, but the description of the original layout as having 'only a walkway without any utilities' is a bit vague. The overview is clear, but the report could be improved by more precisely contrasting the specific locations of the new facilities rather than just listing them. Overall, it addresses the task requirements adequately.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 7.0
The essay is logically organized into an introduction, an overview, and two body paragraphs. The progression of ideas is generally clear, moving from the current state to the future redevelopment. Cohesive devices such as 'Whereas', 'In comparison', and 'Overall' are used to link ideas, although some transitions feel slightly mechanical. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate the general summary from the specific details. While the flow is generally good, the connection between sentences could be smoother to achieve a higher band.
Lexical Resource — Band 6.0
The vocabulary is sufficient to convey the meaning, with some attempts at topic-specific language like 'redevelopment', 'reconstruction', and 'amenity-focused'. However, there are some awkward collocations and word choices, such as 'before rebuilding the services and development, was limited' and 'rebuilt twice'. These do not impede communication but show a lack of precision. To reach a higher band, you should focus on using more sophisticated vocabulary related to spatial descriptions and changes, such as 'extended', 'integrated', or 'transformed'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0
The response uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are some grammatical errors, such as 'the airport grew rapidly after redevelopment' (which is slightly inaccurate as it is a future plan) and 'the expansion of gates doubled to its original plan'. Punctuation is generally correct, and the errors present do not cause difficulty for the reader. To improve, ensure that your verb tenses accurately reflect the nature of the task (future plans vs. current state) and work on more varied complex sentence structures.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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