Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · 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 6.0)

The plans illustrate how a college cafe looked before and how it looks now.

Overall, it is evident that a college cafe goes through a significant changes, with the removal of serving area for all food and drinks and than staff dinning rooms and the addition of salad bar and out door seating. However, the kitchen main seating area and toilet location remain unchanged.

Before the redesign, the kitchen was located at the northwest part of the cafe where all food and drinks are available. In the center part of the cafe there are two staff dinning rooms with the table and chairs. In addition, on the east corner there is trash bin located, and the toilet were in the south-west corner.

After redesign there are several changes that has happened the kitchen location remained same but their serving area replaced with hot meals section. The two staff dinning convert into take away food and coffee bar. In addition on the west corner salad bar was added.The bin was replaced with recycling bin and the toilet location remained same. Finally, an outdoor seating area and barbecue were add outside the cafe.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.5

The candidate successfully addresses all parts of the task by reporting the main features of the college cafe before and after its redesign. An appropriate overview is provided in the second paragraph, highlighting the major transformations such as the removal of the old serving area and staff dining rooms, alongside the addition of a salad bar and outdoor seating. Key details are reported accurately, including the kitchen's retention and the conversion of the staff dining rooms into a take-away food area and coffee bar. While some minor descriptive details contain slight inaccuracies (such as placing the toilets in the south-west instead of the south-east), the overall response is fully developed and satisfies all requirements of Academic Task 1.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The response is arranged logically with a clear overall progression from an introduction and overview to specific descriptions of the past layout and current layout. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different temporal stages of the plans. Cohesive devices are employed to link ideas, such as 'Overall', 'Before the redesign', 'In addition', and 'Finally'. However, there are minor cohesion and referencing flaws, such as missing articles and slight mechanical transitions, but information is still organised coherently throughout.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for describing plans and spatial changes, such as 'redesign', 'removal', 'retained', and 'conversion'. Less common lexical items are attempted, including 'outdoor seating', 'recycling bin', and 'barbecue'. However, there are several word choice, spelling, and collocation errors (e.g., 'dinning' instead of 'dining', 'out door' instead of 'outdoor', 'add' instead of 'added'), which prevent the vocabulary score from reaching a higher band. Nevertheless, the meaning remains clear throughout the response.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as introductory dependent clauses ('Before the redesign, the kitchen was located...') and compound sentences. There are frequent grammatical errors, particularly missing articles ('a college cafe goes through a significant changes', 'on the east corner'), incorrect verb forms ('that has happened the kitchen location remained same'), and punctuation omissions before new clauses. While these errors do not impede overall communication, they demonstrate limited control over complex structures compared to the requirements for Band 7.

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

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