Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-11-14

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 4.5)

The plan illustrates the past and current details of the port harbour in 2020.

Overall,Dock space is reduced and new facilities are added such as shower,toilets and cafe shops. while fishing boats and marina (private yachts) are exhanged their places. The castle is demolished and constructed the hotel.

In past, The dock in the north had large space witha an extra boat. The marina and fishing boats were ins

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0

The response identifies several genuine changes, including the relocation of the marina and fishing boats and the replacement of the castle by a hotel. However, it addresses the task only minimally: the description stops partway through the past layout, so most of the present-day plan and important comparisons are missing. The overview also contains inaccuracies: showers and toilets were already present in 2000, and the dock’s space is not shown as reduced. The year is given as 2020, although the comparison is between 2000 and today. The response is 69 words, below the required 150. To improve, complete the comparison, accurately describe the main changes, and include a concise overview supported by details from both plans.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.5

There is an attempt to organise the response with an overview followed by a paragraph beginning “In past,” and the overview groups several changes together. However, the account ends abruptly at “were ins,” leaving the description incomplete and preventing a clear progression through the maps. The transition from the overview to the past details is also not developed into a systematic comparison of the two dates. Punctuation and spacing, such as “Overall,Dock” and the isolated “while,” make the connections between ideas harder to follow. Use complete paragraphs and organise the body by location or by major changes, linking each past feature to its present equivalent.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The response uses some relevant map vocabulary, including “marina,” “fishing boats,” “dock,” and “facilities,” which helps communicate the topic. There is also an attempt to describe change with “exchanged their places” and “replaced.” However, several choices are inaccurate or awkward: “port harbour” is redundant, “Dock space is reduced” is not supported by the plans, and “the castle is demolished and constructed the hotel” does not express the replacement naturally. Spelling errors such as “exhanged” and “cafe” also reduce precision. Aim for accurate, conventional map language, for example “the marina and fishing-boat areas swapped locations” and “a hotel replaced the disused castle.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.5

The response attempts a few different sentence forms, including an overview and a passive construction in “The castle is demolished and constructed the hotel.” However, the range is very limited, and errors are frequent enough to make parts difficult to interpret. The passive sentence is not formed correctly: the castle should be described as being replaced by a hotel. Other problems include “In past” instead of “In the past,” missing or misplaced articles in “witha an extra boat,” and inconsistent tense when describing the maps. The final clause, “were ins,” is incomplete. Use past tense for the 2000 plan and present tense for today, and check that each sentence has a complete, correctly formed clause.

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