Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-02

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)

The plans below demonstrate a college cafe before it was redesigning and how it looks now. The area and options for costumers of cafe has significantly increased now. The barbecue and outdoor seating is the major addition in the redesigning of the cafe. Kitchen and toilets area remains the same as before redesigning.

The barbecue and huge outdoor seating has been installed outside, which is connected to the cafe with two newly installed doors. Salad bar is added infront of the kitchen area, and serving area has converted into the hot meals. Simillarly, the staff dining rooms are now converted into take away food and coffe bar. The size of bin is increased, but the position remains the same.

Kitchen area's size and place remains the same after redesigning. The position of toilets is also the same as before redesigning. There is an addition of seating outdoor, but the indoor tables and chairs remain at the same point.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response successfully addresses all parts of the task by providing an overview of the main changes and reporting key features of the college cafe before and after its redesign. You identify major alterations such as the addition of the barbecue, outdoor seating, salad bar, and the conversion of staff dining rooms into a take-away food area and coffee bar. However, some areas of the response are slightly under-developed or repetitive, such as mentioning the kitchen and toilets multiple times across different sentences rather than expanding further on other comparative details like the recycling bins or the exact nature of the indoor seating adjustments. This places the response solidly at the competent level, showing strong coverage of the visual data while leaving room for more cohesive extension of specific features.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The text maintains a coherent overall arrangement and follows a logical progression from an introductory overview to specific spatial changes. Paragraphing is attempted, though the division into short blocks creates a slightly disjointed flow. Cohesive devices are sometimes mechanical or repetitive, such as starting consecutive sentences with similar subject structures like 'The barbecue and...' and 'Salad bar is...'. Additionally, referencing could be improved to avoid redundant restatements about unchanged features like the kitchen and toilets. To progress further, you need to use a wider and more flexible range of cohesive devices and organise sentences into a smoother, more unified structure that guides the reader seamlessly through the comparison.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, allowing you to successfully convey basic comparisons such as 'significantly increased', 'major addition', and 'converted into'. However, there are notable word choice and word form errors that prevent a higher score, such as 'costumers' instead of 'customers', 'infront' instead of 'in front', and 'coffe bar' instead of 'coffee bar'. While you attempt some less common vocabulary, inaccuracies in spelling and collocation occasionally surface. To achieve a higher band, you should expand your range of functional vocabulary for describing architectural or spatial changes and ensure precise word formation and spelling throughout.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The response employs a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating control over basic sentence structures. There are, however, several grammatical errors present, particularly with articles, subject-verb agreement, and verb forms. For example, writing 'before it was redesigning' instead of 'before it was redesigned', and 'The area and options for costumers of cafe has significantly increased' where the plural subject requires a plural verb ('have'). Furthermore, missing articles like 'the cafe' and 'a salad bar' appear. These errors do not impede overall communication, but they occur with enough frequency to keep the grammatical control at the current level. To improve, focus on careful proofreading of verb tenses and agreement in complex structures.

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