Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-17

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)

The floor plans of cafe illustrates the cafe before and after modifications.

In the given plans many changes made for food delivery, coffe bar, salad bar, grill and waste bins areas.

Before redevelopment cafe was serve all food and drinks at the same counter attached wirh kitchen at the nirth east side. Main sitting area was packed with table and chairs. Two staff dinning rooms are at the north side wall of the cafe. Toilet was on the south west corner of the cafe along side waste bins area.

In the developed cafe countre at the north east side attached with kitchen area only serves hot meal. In stead of staff dining area, two new counters developed for take away foods and another serves coffee. New salad bar has been developed at the east wall. Toilet is at the same plase as before with larger recycle bins area. Along with inside sitting area outdoor sitting area has been expanded with a barbecue at the east wall of the cafe.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The candidate successfully addresses the main features of the two plans, highlighting key transformations such as the addition of the outdoor seating area, the salad bar, and the reorganisation of food counters. However, there are some minor inaccuracies in spatial positioning (e.g., placing the kitchen in the north-east rather than north-west, and placing the toilets on the south-west rather than south-east). Despite these minor errors, the overall overview and comparison are reasonably well presented, satisfying the core requirements of Task 1.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The response is arranged into logical paragraphs separating the introduction, the original layout, and the redesigned layout. Progression is generally clear as the reader is guided through the changes from before to now. However, cohesive devices are somewhat basic and mechanical, and referencing is occasionally repetitive or vague (e.g., 'In the developed cafe countre...'). Paragraphing is utilised adequately, but overall coherence suffers slightly from the lack of sophisticated transition markers.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, attempting some less common topic-specific items such as 'redevelopment', 'transformations', and 'outdoor seating'. However, there are numerous noticeable spelling and word-choice errors, such as 'coffe' instead of 'coffee', 'wirh' instead of 'with', 'nirth' instead of 'north', 'dinning' instead of 'dining', 'countre' instead of 'counter', and 'plase' instead of 'place'. These errors detract from the lexical score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, though attempts at complex structures are frequently marred by grammatical errors. There are numerous missing articles (e.g., 'Before redevelopment cafe was serve...'), incorrect verb forms (e.g., 'many changes made', 'was serve'), and preposition errors. Punctuation is generally acceptable, but frequent non-systematic structural errors impede fluency and lower the grammatical band score.

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

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