Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-04

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 map illustrate modern version of porth harbor and how it used to be like in 2000.

The plan shows thst previouly their used to less docks for boat to park compared to the new plan where they plan to expand the dock area for boats. Furthermore they also plan to build cafes and shops near the lifeboat for people assessable. They also built road on a map toward hotel which used to castle. The public beach next to castle is now only assessable to hotel and turned it into private beach for their customer. They are planning to fully separate the north porth of harbour and the south porth of harbour by making the north side only open for public and the south side for private

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.5

The response only partially addresses the task requirements. First, it fails to meet the minimum length requirement of 150 words, containing only 127 words. Second, while it attempts to highlight some changes, such as the addition of cafés and shops and the conversion of the castle into a hotel, the information reported contains significant inaccuracies regarding the visual data. For example, the student claims that the north and south parts of the harbour are being separated for public and private use, which is a misinterpretation of the provided maps. The overview is weak, and the selection of main features lacks adequate coverage and precision, pulling the task achievement score down to this level.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.0

The response lacks a clear overall progression and logical organisation. The text is presented in a very short structure with minimal paragraphing, making it difficult to follow the comparison between the two maps. Cohesive devices are either missing or used inaccurately (such as repetitive use of 'They also'), and referencing is sometimes unclear, such as the ambiguous pronoun use in 'turned it into private beach'. To improve, the writer needs to group related information logically, use appropriate paragraph breaks for an introduction, body, and overview, and employ a wider range of cohesive links to guide the reader smoothly through the spatial and temporal comparisons.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is limited and barely adequate for the task, containing noticeable errors that occasionally hinder communication. There are frequent lexical and spelling errors, such as 'illustrate' instead of 'illustrates', 'porth harbor' instead of 'Porth Harbour', 'thst' instead of 'that', 'previouly' instead of 'previously', and 'assessable' instead of 'accessible'. The student attempts some basic descriptive vocabulary related to the maps, but the range is narrow and relies heavily on repetitive words and incorrect word forms, which restricts the quality of the lexical output.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The grammatical range is very limited, relying primarily on simple sentence forms with frequent errors in complex structures. There are numerous grammar and punctuation errors throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement issues ('their used to less docks' instead of 'there used to be fewer docks'), missing articles ('toward hotel which used to castle' instead of 'towards a hotel which used to be a castle'), and incorrect prepositional phrases. These frequent errors cause difficulty for the reader and demonstrate weak control over basic sentence patterns, verb forms, and plurals.

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