Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · 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 5.5)

We have two maps of a cafe showing comparison. Its a before and after structural map of a map

Before the renovation and construction the cafe looks simple and boring. It has a kitchen at the top left, and right outside the kitchen is the serving area which includes serving for all food and drinks. there are seperate staff dining rooms which are two to be precise, in the middle alongside the kitchen. Then in the rest of the area there are tables and chairs. There is a bin near the entrance and at the corner of the cafe there are toilets.After redesigning the cafe it is expanded and many new variations have been done. At the top left is the kitchen and right outside are the hot meals served. Alongside the kitchen the staff tables have been removed and replaced with take away food and a coffee bar. At the left side of the cafe a new bar, salad bar is present and to the extreme right near the entrance are recycling bins. near the bins are the toilets. in the central area of the cafe are the tables and chairs. After redesigning there is also an outdoor seating now. In outdoor area there is a barbecue station to the extreme left anf four tables with chairs for seating.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The student attempts to address the task by describing the main features of the college cafe before and after its redesign. While most key alterations are noted—such as the kitchen remaining in place, the removal of staff dining rooms for a takeaway food and coffee bar, the addition of a salad bar, and the introduction of outdoor seating and a barbecue—the response lacks a clear, overarching overview. Furthermore, some descriptions are imprecise, and the tone is overly informal ('simple and boring') rather than objective and analytical as required for Academic Task 1. Important spatial relationships and comparisons between the two plans could be developed more systematically to fully satisfy the higher band descriptors.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The response shows some basic organisation, moving from a description of the cafe before the redesign to the current layout. However, the paragraphing is extremely poor, with the entire text lumped into only two massive blocks of text. Cohesive devices are minimal, repetitive, or mechanically applied ('Then', 'After redesigning'), and punctuation errors frequently disrupt the flow. For example, sentences often begin without capital letters or run together without proper punctuation. The overall progression feels disjointed rather than logically structured, which heavily impacts readability and places the text firmly in the lower-middle bands.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is quite basic and repetitive, relying heavily on everyday words ('simple', 'boring', 'nice', 'big') rather than precise, topic-specific vocabulary suited for describing floor plans and spatial changes (e.g., 'transformed', 'converted', 'relocated', 'spacious'). There are noticeable spelling errors, such as 'seperate' instead of 'separate' and 'anf' instead of 'and'. While the lexical range is sufficient to convey basic information about the cafe's features, it lacks the flexibility and precision required to achieve a higher score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates a very limited range of grammatical structures, relying mostly on simple sentences with occasional basic complex forms. There are frequent punctuation errors, particularly missing capital letters at the beginning of sentences (e.g., 'there are seperate staff dining rooms', 'near the bins are the toilets') and run-on sentences. Errors in subject-verb agreement and preposition usage also occur ('at the left side of the cafe', 'in outdoor area'). Although communication is rarely completely blocked, the high frequency of basic structural and punctuation errors restricts the score to a Band 5.0.

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.