Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-24

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 diagram below shows structure of college cafe before and after it's renovation.

Overall, cafe covers same amount of area excluding outdoor seating, it consist of kitchen, two rooms, bins and toilets.

Before cafe was redesigned it was simpler, A kitchen and and serving for food and drinks, Two dedicated dinning rooms for staff that was later utilised as coffee bar and take away area. A hall filled with table and chairs and in eastern side there was toilets and bins as they are today.

The cafe basically remains same, Today the serving area is only used for hot meals as staff dinning rooms are used for other purposes the most significant changes are addition of salad bar and an outdoor setup for barbecue and providing sitting .The inside mostly remainded same with an upgrade of bins into recycle bins.

Both cafe look similiar but not identical with todays cafe is upgraded version of old one

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The student attempts to address the task by comparing the two plans of the college cafe. Key features are identified, such as the kitchen, the former staff dining rooms converted into a coffee bar and take-away area, and the addition of the outdoor seating and barbecue. However, the response is brief, just meeting the minimum word count, and some details are slightly imprecise or underdeveloped. For instance, the reference to bins becoming recycling bins is noted, but the overall summary lacks a fully developed overview and deeper comparative analysis of the spatial changes. This places the response in Band 5.5 to 6.0; while relevant features are identified, the overall development is somewhat limited.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The text is organized into four paragraphs, attempting an introduction, an overview, and body details. However, paragraphing and logical progression are hindered by punctuation errors (such as comma splices) and abrupt transitions. For example, sentences like 'Before cafe was redesigned it was simpler, A kitchen and and serving for food and drinks...' demonstrate poor sentence boundary control and mechanical cohesion. Referencing and linking between ideas are frequently weak, creating a disjointed flow that requires the reader to decode the structure. This aligns with Band 5.0 descriptors.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is adequate for a basic description of the maps, featuring terms like 'renovation', 'redesigned', 'serving area', and 'barbecue'. However, there is a lack of precision and range, alongside noticeable word choice and collocation errors, such as 'providing sitting' instead of 'outdoor seating' or 'providing seating', and 'dinning rooms' instead of 'dining rooms'. Less common vocabulary is attempted with limited success. Spelling errors like 'similiar' further restrict the lexical score to Band 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The student uses a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but control over grammar and punctuation is weak. There are frequent errors, including missing articles ('The two diagram', 'cafe covers'), incorrect verb forms ('cafe remainded same', 'Both cafe look similiar'), and severe punctuation issues like comma splices ('Before cafe was redesigned it was simpler, A kitchen and and serving...'). These errors cause frequent reader difficulty and disrupt the grammatical flow, keeping the score at Band 5.0.

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

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