Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · 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 6.5)

The layout displays a college cafe before and after it was refurnished.

Overall, the cafe has undergone significant redevelopment especially through an introduction of different food sections throughout the cafe and an open seating area. The kitchen, the toilets and the general sitting area remain unchanged.

Earlier, the cafe had a single serving area below the kitchen where all kinds of eating and drinking items were available. The dining rooms for the staff were situated at the bottom right of the serving area, which then led to a general sitting area with tables and chairs occupying most of the space in the cafe. In addition, the toilets were located at the bottom right corner of the cafe with a traditional bin above it.

Since then, the cafe has witnessed an extensive renovation. The one-stop food & drink serving area has been replaced with a hot meals section, while the staff dining rooms have been converted into take away food and coffee bar section respectively. Notably, a salad bar has been added in the left corner along with a barbecue facility in the outdoor seating area. Lastly, the traditional small bin has been transformed into modern recycling bins.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.5

The student provides a clear overview of the changes to the college cafe, noting the redevelopment of food sections and the addition of outdoor seating. They accurately report key transformations, such as the replacement of the staff dining rooms with a take-away food and coffee bar section, the addition of a salad bar on the western wall, and the introduction of outdoor seating with a barbecue. However, there is a minor spatial inaccuracy in the body paragraphs: the student states that the staff dining rooms were situated at the bottom right of the serving area, whereas the visual data shows them along the top wall. Despite this minor misread, all parts of the prompt are addressed well, and the key features and comparisons are successfully reported.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 7.0

The response is logically organised into four paragraphs: an introduction, an overview, a description of the past layout, and a description of the present layout. Information progresses clearly from the past to the present, making the comparison easy to follow. Cohesive devices such as 'Overall', 'Earlier', 'Since then', and 'Lastly' are used effectively to guide the reader through the text. Paragraphing is appropriate, and referencing between sentences is generally clear, contributing to an overall coherent piece of writing.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The student demonstrates a sufficient range of vocabulary appropriate for an Academic Task 1 response. Phrases like 'undergone significant redevelopment', 'extensive renovation', and 'transformed into' show good lexical control. There are some slight lexical inaccuracies or awkward collocations, such as 'general sitting area' (instead of seating area) and placing the staff dining rooms at the 'bottom right of the serving area' rather than the top. Nevertheless, the vocabulary is adequate to convey precise changes and features.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.5

The response exhibits a good mix of simple and complex sentence structures, including relative clauses and prepositional phrases (e.g., 'The one-stop food & drink serving area has been replaced with a hot meals section, while the staff dining rooms have been converted into take away food and coffee bar section respectively'). Grammatical control is generally strong with many error-free sentences. Minor errors occur, such as a missing hyphen in 'take away' or a slight mismatch in pluralization ('take away food and coffee bar section respectively'), but these do not impede communication at all.

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