Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-18
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 5.0)
The two plans shows the changes in strusture of the cafe from before, after redesigning it looks and aslo various additional services.
Overall, the cafe underwent significant designing, transforming from a basic and simple layout into much more organized with large area and furnitures.
Cafe before redesigning has a big hall including tables and chairs for the customers covering staff dining rooms in it and toilets. Also, main door leads directly to the main hall. Moreover, it has toilets in south-west and dustbin just in front of the toilet and at the side of the main door. There is also a separate room for the kitchen which also covers serving area within all food and drinks.
Moving forward, after the cafe is redesign, more room has been built including barbecue which is at the outdoor and outdoor seating is also managed within tables and chairs for the costumer. Outdoor is connected to main hall and in the main hall services has been upgraded removing dinning rooms into two separate room including take away food which is self service and coffee bar. In the hall, tables and chairs are already in their original place and toilet too but the bin has been changed into recycling one providing different of bins as types of waste. Salad bar also has
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The student attempts to summarise the main features of the two plans, noting the transformation of the kitchen, the replacement of the staff dining rooms with a coffee bar and takeaway section, and the addition of outdoor seating and a barbecue. However, the response is cut off at the very end ('Salad bar also has...'), leaving a key detail incomplete. Furthermore, there is a minor spatial inaccuracy when describing the toilets as being in the 'south-west' rather than the bottom-right corner. While the overview is attempted, it remains somewhat underdeveloped. Consequently, the response satisfies the basic requirements of the task but falls short of a higher band due to incomplete data reporting and minor inaccuracies. Band score: 5.5.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0
The response is organised into multiple paragraphs, attempting an introduction, an overview, and body paragraphs detailing the before and after states. However, the logical progression is frequently disrupted by awkward transitions and confusing sentence structures, such as 'Moving forward, after the cafe is redesign, more room has been built including barbecue which is at the outdoor...'. Referencing and cohesive devices are often mechanical or misused, making it difficult to follow the spatial relationships between the various features of the cafe. Paragraphing is present, but internal cohesion requires better control. Band score: 5.0.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The student demonstrates an adequate vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common words and phrases such as 'transformed', 'redesigned', and 'recycling one'. However, there are notable lexical errors and imprecise word choices throughout the text, such as 'strusture' (structure), 'significant designing' (significant redesign), and awkward phrasing like 'furnitures' (furniture is uncountable). There are also spelling errors, including 'aslo' and 'dinning'. The abrupt ending also truncates the vocabulary range. Band score: 5.0.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but grammatical accuracy is quite low. There are frequent errors in subject-verb agreement and tense consistency, such as 'The two plans shows' (show) and 'Cafe before redesigning has' (had). Prepositional and article errors are also common, for example, 'at the outdoor' instead of 'outdoors' or 'outside'. Complex structures often contain faults that hinder clarity. While communication is not entirely obscured, the high frequency of grammatical slips pulls the score down into the lower band. Band score: 5.0.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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