Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-11-10

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The plans below show a harbour in 2000 and how it looks today.

Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.

 

 

Student answer (Band 5.5)

The diagram illustrates transformation in the harbour in 2000 and present date.

Overall, the number of car parks, showers and toilets have been increased. The cafes and shop were also newly build.

Porth harbour in 2000 has one Dock, but today it has two Docks, number of cars parks, toilets and showers also increased and castle was transformed into hotel. Along the side of the road new cafes and shops were build. The public beach was converted into private beach. The site of Marina yachts and fishing boats were translocated in present view

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

You identify several important changes, including the hotel replacing the castle, cafés and shops being added, and the marina and fishing-boat areas changing places. However, the response only partially summarises the plans: it gives few specific locations or details, and the overview is limited. The claim that the public beach was converted into a private beach is imprecise: the southern beach becomes private, while the north-eastern public beach remains. There is also no increase in the number of docks; the northern dock gains an additional jetty. The response is 93 words, below the required 150, which leaves major features under-reported. Include the changes to the facilities, boats and beach locations, and distinguish clearly between what remains and what changes.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a basic overall shape: an opening sentence, an overview beginning with “Overall,” and further details. This gives the reader some sense of the purpose and main changes. However, the progression is limited because the final paragraph repeats points already made in the overview, such as the added cafés and shops and the hotel replacing the castle. The ideas are also compressed into a short block, with few linking expressions to show how the changes relate spatially or over time. Organise the report into a clear overview and a details paragraph, grouping related changes—for example, facilities and land use separately from harbour activity—and use precise references such as “in the northern basin” to guide the reader.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You use a reasonable range of task-related vocabulary, including “harbour,” “car parks,” “public beach,” “private beach,” “Marina yachts,” and “translocated.” These choices make the general subject clear, and you attempt some less common wording. However, several expressions are inaccurate or awkward: “number of cars parks” and “the site of Marina yachts and fishing boats were translocated” do not describe the changes naturally. “Two Docks” is also an imprecise label for the additional jetty. Spelling and word-form errors in “cafes,” “build,” and “shop” reduce accuracy. Aim for standard map-report collocations such as “the marina was relocated” and “an additional jetty was added,” and check plural forms and spelling.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You produce several understandable simple sentences and attempt a more complex structure in “The site of Marina yachts and fishing boats were translocated in present view.” However, grammatical control is uneven, and the range of sentence patterns is narrow. For example, “the number of car parks, showers and toilets have been increased” has subject–verb disagreement, while “Porth harbour in 2000 has one Dock” uses an unsuitable tense for a past plan. The sentence about the marina and fishing boats also has a mismatch between the singular subject “site” and plural verb “were.” Articles and sentence construction need attention as well. Practise describing past and present plans with consistent tenses, accurate agreement, and a mix of simple and compound sentences.

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