Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · 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 5.0)

There is a cafe at the college which has been redesigned. Before redesigning the cafe had a kitchen with serving area ( all food and drinks were served from the kitchen) , two staff dining rooms and a hall having tables and chairs and at a corner there were toilets with a bin but after redesigning the cafe it includes outdoor seating with a Barbecue area nearby , also a hall having tables and chairs and a coffee bar in which coffee can be ordered , also a separate Takeaway food area inside the Cafe, the Salad bar was also made in the cafe , a separate Kitchen was made having hot meals , the toilets with Recycling bins

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The response achieves a partial overview of the changes, but it fails to meet the minimum word length requirement of 150 words, coming in at only 119 words. While the candidate attempts to outline features from both plans—such as the kitchen, staff dining rooms converted into takeaway and coffee areas, and the addition of outdoor seating and a barbecue—the information is presented in a very basic and somewhat disjointed manner. The summary lacks a clear and well-developed overall comparison of how the college cafe transformed between the two periods, resulting in limited coverage of the visual data.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.5

The text suffers from a lack of proper paragraphing, as it is written as one long, continuous sentence. There is no clear overall progression or logical structure to guide the reader through the comparison of the two floor plans. Cohesive devices are largely absent or inadequate, with excessive use of the conjunction 'and' (e.g., '...and a coffee bar... also a separate Takeaway... the Salad bar was also made... and the toilets...') instead of punctuation or appropriate transition words. This run-on structure makes the relationships between the features difficult to follow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is basic, repetitive, and minimally adequate for the task. The writer relies heavily on simple words and repeats phrases like 'redesigning the cafe' and 'tables and chairs'. There are awkward phrasings such as 'a hall having tables and chairs' and 'the Salad bar was also made in the cafe'. While some topic-specific terms from the prompt are successfully employed (such as 'kitchen', 'serving area', 'takeaway food', and 'barbecue'), the limited range and occasional clumsy word choices restrict the response to a modest band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The grammatical range is severely limited, consisting essentially of one gigantic run-on sentence joined by commas and coordinating conjunctions rather than distinct simple and complex sentences. There are frequent errors in punctuation, run-on structure, and preposition use (e.g., 'at a corner', 'from the kitchen'). Because the entire text fails to use proper sentence boundaries or terminal punctuation, it creates considerable difficulty for the reader and lacks structural variety.

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

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