Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-07

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 6.5)

The two maps shows the how cafe redesign from orginal layout to the current one.

Overall, the café has been expanded and modernised. Food service is now divided into several specialised areas, and an outdoor dining space has been added.

In the original design, all food and drink was sold from a single serving area inside the kitchen. Two staff dining rooms stood next to the kitchen, and the remainder of the space was filled with tables and chairs. A bin was located on the right wall, and the toilets were in the bottom right corner.

Today, the kitchen has a "hot meals" counter instead of the general serving area. The two staff dining rooms have been removed and replaced by a take away food counter and a coffee bar. A salad bar has also been installed along the left wall, which slightly reduces the space for tables and chairs. The bin has been replaced by recycling bins in the same position, while the toilets have not changed.

The most significant change is outside the building. A new door in the south wall leads to a barbecue area and an outdoor seating section with six tables.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.0

The response gives a clear overview of the main changes, noting the more specialised food-service areas and the addition of outdoor dining. It also accurately reports the kitchen’s hot-meals counter, the replacement of the staff dining rooms, the salad bar, recycling bins and unchanged toilets. These relevant details support a well-focused comparison of the two plans. However, one important detail is inaccurate: the outdoor area has four tables, not six. The description also says “a new door” leads outside, whereas the plan shows two doors in the southern wall. Correcting these details and reporting the outdoor layout precisely would make the account more complete and reliable. The claim that the café “has been expanded” is broadly suggested by the outdoor seating, but could be expressed more precisely as an expansion of dining provision.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 7.0

The information is organised clearly: an overview is followed by a paragraph on the original layout, a comparison with the current interior, and a final paragraph on the outdoor changes. This gives the reader a logical progression through the plans, and linking phrases such as “Overall,” “Today,” and “while” help signal comparison. The contrast between features that changed and those that remained, especially the bin and toilets, is easy to follow. To make the organisation even more effective, integrate the outdoor changes into the comparison of the current plan rather than leaving them as a brief final addition, and connect them explicitly to the two new southern doors. Overall, cohesion is clear, with only modest scope to make the relationships between details more explicit.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.5

The response uses a suitable range of vocabulary for describing a plan, including “replaced,” “installed,” “counter,” “outdoor seating,” and “located.” These choices make most changes easy to understand, and the writer avoids excessive repetition by varying descriptions of the food-service areas. Some wording is less precise or natural: “expanded and modernised” is a broad interpretation, “sold from a single serving area inside the kitchen” may misrepresent the plan’s serving area, and “a new door” does not accurately describe the two doors shown. There are also spelling errors in “orginal” and “cafe” in the opening. More exact plan vocabulary and careful proofreading would strengthen precision and control while retaining the response’s useful range.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

The response includes a mix of simple and more developed sentence forms, such as “The two staff dining rooms have been removed and replaced…” and the contrast in “The bin has been replaced…, while the toilets have not changed.” Most sentences communicate the intended comparisons clearly. However, some grammatical errors remain. The opening has a subject–verb agreement error (“maps shows”) and an unnecessary construction (“the how cafe redesign”); it also needs a clearer verb phrase, such as “show how the café was redesigned.” In “A new door in the south wall leads…,” the singular article does not match the two doors shown, though this is also a factual issue. Greater accuracy in the opening sentence and more consistent control of articles and agreement would improve the overall grammatical performance.

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