Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-14

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 6.0)

The maps illustrate how a harbour has changed between 2000 and the present day.

Overall, the harbour has underwent to significant changes throughout the period and become tourist friendly by adding cafes and hotel facilities.

In 2000, the south eastern sides of harbour had a castle that was disused , now the castle building is tranforms into hotel a road is linked it to the southern road as well as the public beach shifts to private for hotel residents. A dock is added in northern to increase the number of passenger ferries, while public beach on this is same as previous.

On the other hand, the marina private yachts and fishing boats are two places that's locations changes and shifting to each others places north to south , respectively. The new cafes and shops built in southern side along with lifeboats, while some showers and toilets are added along with south eastern car pak. However, the car park and toilets of the northern side remained the original.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

You identify the main overall change: the harbour has become more visitor-oriented, with a hotel and cafés/shops, and you report the castle-to-hotel conversion and the beach becoming private. You also correctly note that the marina and fishing-boat areas exchange locations, and that the north-eastern public beach remains. These are relevant, well-selected features. Some details, however, are unclear or inaccurate: the dock is not simply “added”; it gains an additional jetty and accommodates two boats, and the cafés and shops are beside the lifeboat station along the road, not on its “southern side.” The new southern-west facilities and the northern facilities are also described imprecisely. This covers the task well overall, but fuller, more exact reporting would strengthen it.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a clear basic structure: an introduction, an overview, and two detail paragraphs. The contrastive phrase “On the other hand” signals a shift to another set of changes, and the reader can generally follow the comparison between 2000 and today. However, the progression within paragraphs is sometimes difficult to track because several changes are compressed into long, loosely connected sentences. For example, the sentence beginning “In 2000, the south eastern sides…” combines the castle, road, beach and dock without clear separation. References such as “on this” and “their places” are also unclear. Organise the details by location or by type of change, and use more precise linking and referencing to make the sequence smoother.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant task vocabulary, including “harbour,” “marina,” “fishing boats,” “passenger ferries,” and “private beach,” and phrases such as “tourist friendly” show an attempt to summarise the development. However, several word choices and collocations are inaccurate or awkward, which sometimes makes the map changes harder to understand. Examples include “underwent to significant changes,” “shifts to private,” and “increase the number of passenger ferries”; the last claim is not clearly supported by the map. There are also spelling and form errors such as “tranforms” and “car pak.” Aim for precise location and change language, such as “was converted into,” “was designated as,” and “an additional jetty was built.” This would make your vocabulary more accurate and natural.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentences, including a relative clause in “the marina private yachts and fishing boats are two places that's locations changes.” However, errors in verb forms, agreement, articles and sentence construction are frequent enough to make some relationships unclear. For instance, “has underwent” should use the past participle “undergone,” while “the castle building is tranforms into hotel” needs a passive form such as “was transformed into a hotel.” The sentence about the marina and fishing boats also has faulty agreement and an unclear clause structure. Punctuation is inconsistent, including spaces before commas. Practise accurate past-tense and passive constructions for map descriptions, and build shorter sentences around one change at a time before adding more complex structures.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.