Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-21

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 map shows a harbour in 2000 and how it looks today.

Overall,the harbour has undergone considerable development,particulary in terms of tourism and visitours facilities. The most noticable change are the construction of cafes and shops, the replacement of the disused castls with a hotel,and the rearrangement of some harbour facilities.

Looking first to the western side of the harbour, the main road and the two car parks have remained in the place,although another set of these facilities has been added further south. In addition, the marinia for private yatchs has been relocated from the nothern part of the harbour to the southern side.

Turning to the rest of harbour, the dock facilities has been expanded, with an additional dock provided for boats.The passenger ferry area and public beac remain unchanged.Near the southern road cafes and shops has been constructed beside the lifeboat stations,providing more amenitities for visitors .Furthermore, the southern part of the harbour has been replaced by hotels .

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response6.0
Coherence and Cohesion6.0
Lexical Resource6.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.5
Overall6.0

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You provide a relevant overview, identifying tourism-related development, the hotel replacing the disused castle, and changes to harbour facilities. You also report several accurate details, including the marina’s move south and the addition of cafés and shops beside the lifeboat station. However, some important changes are unclear or inaccurately described. The dock gained an additional jetty, rather than an additional dock, and the passenger ferry area is not explicitly shown as unchanged. The southern public beach became a private beach for the hotel; saying the southern part was “replaced by hotels” misrepresents this change, and the hotel replaces the castle at the south-eastern headland. The fishing boats’ relocation to the northern basin is also omitted. Covering these features more precisely would make the summary more complete.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a clear overall structure: an introduction, an overview, and two paragraphs describing different parts of the harbour. Phrases such as “Overall,” “Looking first,” and “Turning to” help signal the progression, and the reader can generally follow the comparison. However, the geographical grouping is not always clear: the paragraph about the western side includes the marina’s relocation, while the next paragraph shifts between the dock, beach, cafés and hotel without a consistent spatial order. Some linking is also mechanical, and the sentence about the southern part being replaced by hotels leaves the relationship between the hotel and beach unclear. Organise details by location or by type of change, and use clearer references to connect each feature to its position.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You use an adequate range of task-related vocabulary, including “considerable development,” “relocated,” “replacement,” and “amenities,” and these choices help describe changes rather than simply list map labels. Some less common wording is attempted, but inaccurate spelling and collocation reduce precision: “marinia,” “yatchs,” “noticable,” and “amenitities” should be corrected, while “additional dock” does not accurately name the new feature. “The southern part … has been replaced by hotels” is also an imprecise way to describe the hotel and private beach. These errors do not prevent the general meaning from being understood, but careful proofreading and more exact map vocabulary would strengthen the description.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, including the overview sentence beginning “Overall” and the clause “with an additional dock provided for boats.” Most ideas remain understandable, but some grammatical errors affect accuracy. For example, “the most noticeable change are” has a subject–verb agreement error, and “the dock facilities has been expanded” and “cafes and shops has been constructed” also require plural agreement. Articles and number are inconsistent in “the passenger ferry area and public beach,” while “the rest of harbour” needs an article. Punctuation spacing is also uneven, with commas joined directly to following words. Check agreement, articles and sentence punctuation, especially when combining several features.

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

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