Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-03

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 6.0)

The given maps compare the present layout of porth harbour with how it looked in 2000.

Overall, the porth has undergone significant redevelopment, with several new facilities being added, including the addition of cafes and shops, and a hotel. Meanwhile, some facilities remained unchanged, such as the dock area and public beach.

One of the most prominent changes is the expansion of dock area, in the center of the porth harbour. New showers and toilets have been developed near the lower car park, on the south-west side. Additionally, the cafes and shops have also been established next to the lifeboat. The location of fishing boats has been replaced by marina (private yachts), which is located on the western side. In the south-east corner, the disused castel has been renovated and converted into a hotel. Finally, the public beach near the castel servers as private beach and is now entirely allocated for the hotel's guests.

In the north-south corner, showers and toilets and the cark part has remained at the same location, as well as the lower cark park, located in south-west corner. The position of lifeboat and the pessenger ferries has been left untouched, despite the addition of a new dock.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response successfully addresses all parts of the task by providing an overview and outlining the main changes between the harbour layout in 2000 and today. Key features such as the relocation of the marina and fishing boats, the addition of cafes and shops, and the conversion of the disused castle into a hotel are properly reported. However, some areas lack fully developed detail or contain slight inaccuracies in spatial description, such as locating the marina on the western side rather than the southern basin. To reach a higher level, the overview could be more integrated and key features supported by more precise spatial relationships and comparisons.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a coherent overall arrangement and presents a clear progression of ideas from the introduction to the body paragraphs and the overview. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different aspects of the harbour transformations. Cohesive devices are generally present, though referencing and transitional phrases occasionally feel somewhat mechanical, such as the repetitive use of directional markers and transitional adverbs like 'Additionally' and 'Finally'. Improving the flexibility and natural flow of cohesive ties between sentences would help lift this criterion further.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The student demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for a descriptive task, attempting less common items such as 'redevelopment', 'renovated', and 'allocated'. However, there are notable spelling and word-choice errors, including 'porth' instead of 'port' or 'Porth', 'castel' instead of 'castle', and 'cark part' instead of 'car park'. Furthermore, phrases like 'servers as private beach' exhibit lexical and collocation inaccuracies. While communication is not severely impeded, these errors prevent the vocabulary score from reaching a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

The writing features a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating control over passive structures and relative clauses, as seen in 'facilities being added' and 'which is located on the western side'. There are some grammatical errors in article usage, prepositional patterns, and subject-verb agreement, such as 'expansion of dock area' missing an article, 'pessenger ferries', and 'the public beach near the castel servers as private beach'. Nonetheless, these errors are relatively infrequent and rarely impede communication, allowing the response to sit comfortably at this level.

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

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