Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 4.5 · 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 4.5)
The diagram illustrates the layout of cafe before and how it was looked after redesign
Overall, the cafe was undergone substantial transformation from staff dining room to more diverse, incorportating parcel amanities and coffee bar. while some features are retained and new facilitie are occured.
initially, the upper side of the cafe was dominated by the staff dining rooms and serving area all food and drink behind this thera was an kitchen. In the present, the site was completly repurposed the former posture area was working multi functionaly, including take away food, coffe bar and hot meals.While the kitchen remain constant.
In the lower side,
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 4.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 4.5 |
| Overall | 4.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0
The response is severely under-length, containing only 105 words compared to the required 150-word minimum. This results in a heavy penalty under Task Achievement. While the student attempts an overview and mentions some key transformations such as the replacement of staff dining rooms with a take-away food and coffee bar area, and notes that the kitchen remains constant, the response trails off abruptly at the end ('In the lower side,') and fails to complete the description of the southern outdoor seating and barbecue features. Consequently, the task is only partially addressed.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0
The essay attempts a logical structure with an introduction/overview paragraph followed by body details, using transition signals like 'Overall' and 'initially'. However, paragraphing is disrupted by the incomplete ending and the very short format. Cohesive devices are occasionally awkward or misused, such as 'the cafe was undergone' and 'facilitie are occured', and referencing is sometimes unclear due to fragmentation.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The student attempts some less common vocabulary, such as 'substantial transformation', 'repurposed', and 'multi functionaly'. However, there are numerous lexical and spelling errors throughout the text, including 'incorportating', 'parcel amanities' (likely meant as partial amenities), 'facilitie', 'occured', 'completly', and 'coffe'. These errors and awkward word choices restrict the lexical score to Band 5.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.5
The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but control is weak. There are frequent grammatical errors, such as passive voice misuse ('the cafe was undergone'), subject-verb agreement issues ('facilitie are occured'), and incomplete sentence fragments ('In the lower side,'). Punctuation and capitalization are also erratic, with sentences starting with lowercase letters ('initially').
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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