Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-19

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 plans below show how college cafe before it was redesigned and how it looks now.

The older cafe had no outdoor seating and anything else. The older cafe had a kitchen and hot meals in the north-west side . The redesign cafe had a replacement wuth serving area with aa food and drink are served. The older cafe had tables and chairs in the middle of cafe with staff dining rooms on the north middle of the cafe. The redisgn cafe have a saladbar in the north-west side of the cafe .

Also dining rooms are replaced by coffee bar and a delivery food resturant.The older cafe had a bin in the south-east side whic are replaced by recycle bins. At the outer side of the redesign cafe , there is a barbecue with outdoor seating. This barbecue and outdoor seating was not in older one.Overall many changes have occured in new one.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The response attempts to cover the main changes between the two plans, noting the addition of outdoor seating, a barbecue, a salad bar, and the replacement of staff dining rooms. However, there are significant inaccuracies and confusion in reporting the layout. For instance, the student states that the older cafe had 'hot meals in the north-west side' when the kitchen was there and hot meals are actually a feature of the new layout. Additionally, the description contains vague statements such as 'and anything else'. While an overview is attempted at the end, the lack of precision and confusing phrasing limit the overall development of task achievement, placing it at a Band 5.0 level.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The text is structured into a short introduction, a body of descriptive sentences, and a brief concluding sentence, but paragraphing is extremely poor, with multiple short, disconnected sentences lumped together. Cohesive devices are minimal and sometimes inaccurate, such as 'Also dining rooms are replaced' and 'The redesign cafe have...'. The progression of ideas lacks logical flow, moving somewhat erratically between different areas of the cafe without clear spatial markers. Pronoun referencing and substitution are weak, resulting in a disjointed reading experience that corresponds to a Band 4.5, rounded to Band 5.0.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

Vocabulary is basic and repetitive, with frequent word-choice errors and awkward phrasing such as 'The redesign cafe', 'replacement wuth serving area', and 'delivery food resturant' (referring to take away food). Spelling mistakes occur ('wuth', 'redisgn', 'saladbar', 'whic'). While the student attempts some less common vocabulary items related to the prompt (e.g., 'barbecue', 'outdoor seating', 'recycle bins'), the numerous inaccuracies in word formation and collocation constrain the score to Band 4.5, rounded to Band 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student uses a very limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on simple sentences starting with 'The older cafe had' or 'The redesign cafe'. Grammatical errors are frequent throughout the text, including subject-verb agreement errors ('The redisgn cafe have'), tense inconsistencies ('This barbecue and outdoor seating was not in older one'), and missing articles. These errors occasionally cause difficulty for the reader in tracking what was changed. Overall, the grammatical control reflects a Band 4.5, rounded to Band 5.0.

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

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