Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-09-30

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 college cafe after redesigning looks much more convenient for customers. The pain point which was redesigned is the increasing capacity in the cafe with providing the outdoor seating making the cafe more roomy by adding more entrances. The serving area expanded by converting the staff dining rooms into a take away food and a coffee bar, adding a salad bar, serving area converted into a separate hot meals, barbecue section is added in outdoor seating area. Before redesigning there was a single bin near the tiolets, but after redesigning the recycle bins were added at same place, the idea might be of handling the trash more conveniently.

In conclusion of comparison between both plans, the redesigned cafe is more spacious, convenient and customer fiendly in terms of handling more capacity, with providing separate areas for different sort of meals including standalone salad bar, barbecue, coffee bar, hot meals and take aways ultimately reducing crowds, and space for customers who want to enjoy outdoors.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response successfully covers all major features of the college cafe before and after the redesign, presenting a clear overview and highlighting key transformations such as the addition of the outdoor seating area, barbecue, salad bar, and the conversion of the staff dining rooms into a take-away food area and coffee bar. The main features are appropriately reported and compared, fulfilling the requirements well. However, the explanation occasionally leans towards interpretation rather than strictly objective reporting, which prevents the response from achieving a higher rating.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The essay displays a coherent overall arrangement with a clear introduction and conclusion. Information and ideas are generally organized logically, moving from general observations to specific layout changes. However, cohesion at the sentence level is at times mechanical or faulty, such as in the listing structure used in the first paragraph ('The serving area expanded by converting...'), which lacks smooth transitional phrasing. Paragraphing is present, but the body of the text is somewhat compressed into a single dense paragraph, limiting the clarity of the overall progression.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, allowing the student to describe the physical changes in the cafe layout. Less common lexical items are attempted, such as 'convenient', 'spacious', and 'customer friendly', but there are noticeable errors in word choice and spelling, such as 'tiolets' and 'fiendly'. Collocation is sometimes imprecise, and repetition of basic terms like 'cafe' and 'redesign' restricts the range. These lexical slips and limited variety keep the response at the current level.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The student attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some capability with relative clauses and participial phrases, such as 'making the cafe more roomy by adding more entrances.' However, grammatical control is inconsistent, leading to frequent structural errors and awkward phrasing, such as 'The college cafe after redesigning looks...' and 'The pain point which was redesigned is the increasing capacity...' Punctuation and run-on structures also impact readability, requiring the reader to work harder to parse the intended meaning.

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

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