Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-11-11
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 given plans illustrates a porth harbour in 2000 and how it has developed in the present day.
Overall, the main plan remains same although there are additions in facilities and services. The castle is convered into a private hotel, passenger ferrie's dock are increased and the fishing boats area is interchanged with marina private yachts with additional showers and toilets in the southen part os the plan.
In 2000 the porth harbour plan is pretty simple when you entre from the main road in the north west area to the car park there are showers and toilets beside it and in the front is marina private yachts. Additionaly from the adjoining road there is a car park and fishing boats. The same road leads to lifeboat area and the castle with a public beach.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0
You identify the two time periods and give a broad overview that the harbour gained facilities and that the castle became a hotel. You also mention the exchange between the fishing-boat area and the marina, which is a significant change. However, the response addresses the task only partially: it describes mainly the 2000 layout and gives almost no account of how the harbour looks today. Important changes such as the added cafés and shops, the extra showers and toilets, and the altered dock are omitted. Some details are unclear, including the statement that the passenger-ferry dock increased. The response is also 15 words below the required minimum. To improve, describe the present-day plan in a separate paragraph and compare the main changes accurately.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5
The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction, an overview, and a paragraph describing the earlier plan. This gives the reader a basic route through the information, and phrases such as “Overall” and “In 2000” help signal the stages. However, there is no developed paragraph about the present-day layout, so the progression from past to present is incomplete. Several details are crowded into the overview, making relationships between changes difficult to follow, while “Additionaly” introduces another feature without clearly locating it. Organise the body into a clear account of 2000 followed by a comparison of today, and use linking phrases to show what was moved, added, or replaced.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
You use some relevant map vocabulary, including “facilities and services,” “car park,” “fishing boats,” and “public beach,” and you attempt to describe change with “interchanged” and “converted.” This gives the response a minimally adequate range for the task. However, several spelling and word-choice errors are noticeable, such as “convered,” “southen,” and “entre,” and some phrases are awkward or imprecise: “the main plan remains same” and “passenger ferrie's dock are increased.” These can make the intended changes harder to understand. Aim for accurate, conventional map language and check spelling; for example, describe facilities as “added” and locations as “situated beside” or “to the south of.”
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0
The response attempts both simple statements and longer sentences, including “The same road leads to lifeboat area and the castle with a public beach.” However, the range is limited, and errors occur frequently enough to affect clarity. For example, “The given plans illustrates” has a subject–verb agreement error, while “although there are additions” does not fit smoothly with “the main plan remains same.” Articles are also missing in phrases such as “to lifeboat area” and “in the front is marina private yachts.” The overview sentence about the dock is difficult to interpret partly because its grammatical structure is faulty. Practise accurate sentence patterns for describing locations and changes, and check agreement, articles, and plural forms before submitting.
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