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 plan demonstrates the changes that have been made in present Porth Habour in comparison to year 2000.

To start with west side, in today's plan an addition rest areas that are showers and toilets, have been introduced with car parking adjacent to main road. In addition to it, the positions of Fshing boats and Marina (private yachts) have been shuffled. In 2000, the area of Marina was positioned in top north and fishing boats were in south, but in present plan locations been shuffled. Moreover, an extra Dock has also been introduced in present plan in comparsion to previous. Another major addition is Cafes and Shops adjacent to Lifeboat area down the connecting road that merges later with Main road.

Moving foward to plan transformations in East harbor side, one major modification is recent plan is conversion of Castle (discused) into Hotel that connects with road leading to main road. Secondly, the public beach area is privatized for the hotel guests.

In conclsuion, this plan highlights the recent addition, transformations, and modifications of key areas of Porth Harbour relative to year 2000.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response addresses all parts of the prompt by comparing the harbour layout in 2000 with today, highlighting major modifications such as the swapped locations of the fishing boats and marina, the addition of cafes and shops, and the conversion of the castle into a hotel. However, certain parts are underdeveloped or lack precise reporting. For example, describing the addition of rest areas as "an addition rest areas that are showers and toilets" lacks precision regarding where the new facilities were placed. The overview in the conclusion is somewhat generic and could have been more thoroughly integrated with the specific spatial shifts observed across the two maps. Overall, the information is generally relevant, but the depth of development prevents it from reaching a higher level.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The response demonstrates a clear overall progression and logical arrangement of information, moving systematically from the west side to the east side of the harbour. Paragraphing is used adequately to separate the introduction, body details, and conclusion. Cohesive devices are employed to guide the reader through the comparison, using phrases such as "To start with", "In addition to it", and "Moving foward". However, some referencing is slightly mechanical or repetitive, and a few cohesive links are awkward, such as "in present plan locations been shuffled". While the organizational structure is sound and meets the criteria for a solid score, the occasional clunky transition prevents it from achieving full fluency.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is minimally adequate for the task, with attempts to incorporate less common items related to map descriptions, such as "modifications", "transformations", and "privatized". However, there are noticeable lexical errors, awkward word choices, and spelling mistakes throughout the text, including "Habour" for harbour, "Fshing" for fishing, "discused" for disused, and "conclsuion" for conclusion. The phrase "an addition rest areas" contains a grammatical-lexical mismatch in word form. While communication is not severely impeded, these repeated slips in spelling and word formation restrict the score to this band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as comparative structures and relative clauses. There is control over basic sentence construction, but grammatical errors are present. Errors include missing articles (e.g., "in present Porth Habour"), incorrect prepositions (e.g., "in East harbor side"), and awkward verb forms or missing auxiliary verbs (e.g., "locations been shuffled"). Punctuation and agreement errors also occur intermittently. Nevertheless, these errors rarely impede communication and the meaning remains clear, fitting the descriptor where a mix of structures is used alongside some persistent grammatical inaccuracies.

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

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