Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-08-24
IELTS Writing Task 1 question
The plans below show a college cafe before it was redesigned and how it looks now.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
The plans below show a college cafe before it was redesigned and how it looks now.
Student answer (Band 5.5)
This diagram shows the design of college cafe before renovation and after renovation. Cafe before restoration have a kitchen, a serving area, dining rooms for staff, bin, toilet or tables and chairs area in it. In today's cafe kitchen remains unchanged while serving area replaced with hot meals area. Moreover, in new cafe the staff dining room was transformed into two separates areas one for take away food and the other is coffee bar. Also, an indoor salad bar is added into cafe. Additionally, a barbecue section is introduced in outerside of cafe. Beside this, outside seating is included in cafe with two entrance doors one is closer to barbecue, and the other one is right before the toilets. Furthermore, the tables and chairs area, toilets and dustbin remain at same place
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0
The response fails to meet the minimum word count requirement of 150 words, which significantly impacts the task achievement score. While you have identified the main features of the cafe renovation, such as the changes to the serving area and the addition of the salad bar and barbecue section, the analysis is quite brief. To achieve a higher band, you need to provide a more detailed overview and ensure that all comparisons are fully developed. The current length prevents a thorough summary of the information provided in the diagrams, leading to an under-developed response that does not fully address the task requirements.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The response is written as a single paragraph, which lacks the necessary structure for an IELTS Task 1 report. You should organize your writing into clear paragraphs, typically an introduction, an overview, and one or two body paragraphs detailing the specific changes. While you use some cohesive devices like 'Moreover', 'Additionally', and 'Furthermore', the flow is somewhat mechanical. The progression of ideas is generally logical, but the lack of paragraphing makes the text feel like a list of observations rather than a cohesive report. Improving your paragraphing and using a wider variety of linking phrases will help improve the flow.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
Your vocabulary is adequate for the task but remains quite basic. You use repetitive phrasing such as 'in new cafe' and 'in cafe'. There are also some awkward collocations, such as 'outerside of cafe' instead of 'outside the cafe' or 'exterior'. To improve, try to incorporate more precise vocabulary related to describing changes, such as 'transformed', 'converted', 'relocated', or 'expanded'. You also have some minor errors in word choice, such as 'restoration' when 'renovation' or 'redesign' would be more appropriate in this context. Expanding your range of descriptive verbs and nouns will help you reach a higher band.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5
The response contains several grammatical errors, particularly regarding articles ('a kitchen', 'the kitchen') and prepositions. For example, you wrote 'Cafe before restoration have' instead of 'The cafe before the renovation had'. There are also issues with subject-verb agreement and missing articles throughout the text. While your meaning is generally clear, the frequency of these errors is noticeable. You rely mostly on simple sentence structures; incorporating more complex sentence forms, such as relative clauses or passive voice constructions (e.g., 'The serving area was replaced by...'), would demonstrate a better command of grammatical range and accuracy.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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