Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-22

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 shown in the diagrams are illustrates the cafe look before renovation as well as after renovation.

Before Renovation the cafe was not developed as much as you can see there is only one serving area for all types of foods but at that time there was a staff dining area which is a good initiative for staff but after the renovation the staff dining area was replaced by take away food and cofee bar.And Before renovation there was a lot of area for tables and chairs

which was minimized afterwards and the extra space was utilized by salad bar.

After renovation the tables and chairs area that was minimized to by keeping salad bar was reinstated by adding a outdoor seating area and live barbeque which can be a good initiative for the customers and since the development added many sections in the cafe means it invites lot of customers so the recycling bin size was also made large as compared to previous

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The response covers the main changes shown in the two diagrams, such as the addition of the salad bar, outdoor seating, barbecue, and the conversion of the staff dining rooms into a takeaway food counter and coffee bar. However, the tone is overly informal and descriptive ('a good initiative for staff', 'invites lot of customers') rather than maintaining the objective, formal register expected in Academic Task 1. Furthermore, there is no clear overview paragraph summarising the overall spatial transformations. Consequently, the task is addressed only partially, placing it at Band 5.0.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The response suffers from poor paragraphing, with most of the text clumped together into a single, lengthy block without adequate division between introduction, body points, and conclusion. While basic cohesive devices and conjunctions like 'and', 'since', and 'afterwards' are used to connect clauses, the run-on sentence structures and lack of clear logical progression cause the reading experience to feel disjointed. Referencing is sometimes unclear, particularly with pronoun use and transitions between the before and after states. This performance aligns with Band 5.0 descriptors.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates a limited but minimally adequate vocabulary range suitable for describing basic physical alterations, using terms like 'renovation', 'counter', 'reinstated', and 'sections'. However, there are notable word choice and collocation errors, such as 'cofee bar' (spelling error) and phrasing like 'made large as compared to previous' instead of 'enlarged'. The vocabulary is repetitive, and attempts at more advanced terminology are awkward, which occasionally hinders clarity. This reflects the characteristics of Band 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The essay displays a very limited range of grammatical structures, relying heavily on long, concatenated sentences joined by coordinating conjunctions (e.g., 'and before renovation there was...'). There are frequent grammatical errors, including subject-verb agreement issues ('the plans... is illustrates'), missing articles ('an outdoor seating area'), and punctuation failures such as run-on sentences with missing capitalisation or periods. Complex structures are attempted but often flawed in execution, resulting in errors that frequently cause difficulty for the reader, fitting the Band 5.0 level.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.