Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-06
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 given map illustrates how the college cafe appears before it was redesigned and the way it looks after redesigning.
To begin with, the cafe has undergone several significant changes. The staff dining room has been have been replaced for the facilities of customers like take away food counter and coffee bar. While a salad bar and a outdoor seating area with barbecue section had also been added in the space which was vacate before.Therefore kitchen and toilets are in the same location.Before the redesign the kitchen was located in top left corner , with serving area for all food and drink immediatly below it but now it had been changed to hot meals section. The central part of cafe had tables and chairs which had been unchanged. The toilets were in the bottom right corner , with a recycling bin nearby.
overall, it is clear from all the perspective that the college cafe had been changed so much and the changes provides more facilites of public than it was before.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 6.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0
The response addresses all parts of the task by reporting the main features of the college cafe before and after the redesign, meeting the word count requirement successfully. The student makes relevant comparisons, noting that the kitchen and toilets remained in the same location while the staff dining rooms were replaced. However, some areas of the response are under-developed or lack clarity, such as the descriptions of the outdoor seating and barbecue sections. Additionally, the overview is somewhat simplistic and lacks a comprehensive summary of the overall spatial transformation, which keeps the task achievement score at a moderate level.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5
The response demonstrates a coherent overall arrangement with a clear attempt to structure the comparison using introductory and concluding remarks, as well as sequential phrases like 'To begin with'. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or faulty, and paragraphing is underdeveloped, resulting in a single large body paragraph that clumps multiple distinct changes together. Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as ambiguous pronoun usage, and the flow of information lacks smooth progression between the various spatial modifications. These structural limitations prevent the text from achieving a higher band.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary suitable for the task, attempting less common terms such as 'redesigned', 'facilities', and 'recycling bin'. However, there are noticeable vocabulary errors and awkward word choices, such as 'vacate' instead of 'vacant', 'facilities of customers' instead of 'customer facilities', and 'all the perspective' instead of 'every perspective'. Spelling is generally acceptable, but frequent word-choice inaccuracies and awkward phrasing restrict the score, indicating a need for greater precision and natural collocation when describing maps and spatial changes.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5
The writing exhibits a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some ability to describe changes over time using past and present tenses. However, there are frequent grammatical errors in verb forms, voice, and agreement, such as 'The staff dining room has been have been replaced', 'a outdoor seating area', and 'which had been vacate before'. Punctuation is also inconsistent in places, with unnecessary spaces before punctuation marks. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they occur regularly enough to characterize the grammatical control at this level.
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