Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-11
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 plan illustrate the layout if café in college before and after redesigned. Overall, café has been added so many new facilities like Coffee bar, Take food away and outdoor seating. In addition, staff dining room will replaced by customer facilities, while kitchen and toilets remain as it is on same location. Before redesigned, the café mainly large area are developed with tables and chairs. The Kitchen and servers area for food and drinks are located at the top left corner. Two staff dining room were situated along the upper side of main seating area. Furthermore, the bin is situated on right and side and toilets is situated near right hand corner. After the redesigned the seating area remain same but several changes happen . The original serving area has changed by hot meal section. The staff dining room has been converted by coffee bar and take away food. A salad bar has also been added on left hand wall, while recycling bin provided on right. The most addition thing is outdoor seating which included serval tables and chairs. The Barbecue has also added in left hand corner near outdoor seating.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 6.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5
The response identifies the main transformation and gives a clear overview: new customer facilities have been introduced, the staff dining rooms have been repurposed, and the kitchen and toilets remain in place. It also reports several relevant details, including the hot-meals counter, salad bar, recycling bins and outdoor seating with a barbecue. These points show good coverage of the plans, although some features are less fully described: for example, the outdoor area’s four tables and its access through new southern doors are not mentioned. “Take food away” is also an imprecise rendering of the labelled takeaway section. To strengthen the account further, compare the locations and changes more precisely and include a little more detail about the new outdoor arrangement.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0
The response has a recognisable structure, moving from an overview to the original layout and then to the redesigned café. Sequencing phrases such as “Before redesigned” and “After the redesigned” help distinguish the two plans, and the main changes are generally easy to follow. However, progression within paragraphs is sometimes list-like, and linking is repetitive: “Furthermore,” “while,” and repeated references to “the” facilities do not always make relationships between details clear. The overview also repeats information that is developed immediately afterwards. Use clearer grouping—for example, describe the unchanged features together, then the internal changes, followed by the outdoor additions—and use reference words carefully to make the comparisons flow more naturally.
Lexical Resource: Band 5.5
The response uses a relevant range of vocabulary for describing a plan, including “layout,” “converted,” “remain,” “located,” and “added.” This is enough to communicate most of the changes, but several word-choice and collocation problems make the description less precise or natural. Examples include “Take food away,” “the most addition thing,” and “the café mainly large area are developed.” Some terms are also repeated, particularly “situated” and “added,” where more precise alternatives would improve variety. Check the exact labels in the plan and choose conventional expressions such as “takeaway food section” and “outdoor dining area.” More accurate collocations and a wider range of location verbs would make the account clearer and more fluent.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0
The response attempts both simple and more complex sentences, including a contrast with “while” and a relative clause in “outdoor seating which included…”. However, errors occur across sentence patterns and often make the wording awkward. For example, “The plan illustrate” has subject–verb disagreement, while “staff dining room will replaced” has an incorrect verb form and tense. Articles, plurals and sentence construction are also inconsistent in “the café mainly large area are developed with tables and chairs” and “toilets is situated.” The meaning is usually recoverable, but these errors limit control. Practise accurate past-tense descriptions of the former plan and present-tense descriptions of the current one, checking agreement and complete sentence structure.
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