Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-12

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 two plans illustrates a college cafe early it was reconstructed and how it seems now.

Overall, it can be seen that the area experienced the significant development. The location became more modern, with new features such as take away food and coffee bar replacing the staff dinning rooms. The salad bar is introduced, and outdoor seating with a barbecue is expended on the southern side.

Before redevelopment, there was a kitchen and serving area in the northwest,while today kitchen remain unchaged and service area replaced by a hot meals section. The tables and chairs section stay in the same posiyion. The significant development is the construction of a salad bar in the eastern side. The seating area is also expended with outdoor seating, which is connected by two entrence doors.

In the updated plan, the most noticeable change is that the staff dinning rooms bin area is sustituted by a recycling bin in the east side. The toliets place is same after the development. The staff dinning rooms removed and converted into take away and coffee bar now.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You identify the main overall change: the café has been modernised, with the former staff dining rooms replaced by takeaway and coffee facilities and outdoor seating added. You also correctly note that the kitchen and toilets remain, and that the serving counter now offers hot meals. However, some details are inaccurate or unclear: the salad bar is on the western wall, not the eastern side, and the recycling bins replace the single bin rather than the staff dining rooms. The barbecue is mentioned in the overview but not described further. The response therefore reports several relevant features, but coverage is partial and some comparisons are not reliably expressed. Check each location against the plan and distinguish changes to the north, east, west and south sides.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

The response has an opening, an overview and two detail paragraphs, and it generally moves from the former layout to the current one. This gives the reader some organisation. However, progression is weakened by repeated information: the replacement of the staff dining rooms is stated in both the overview and the final paragraph, while the final paragraph combines the bin change with the dining-room change in a confusing way. Linking is also limited, and phrases such as “In the updated plan” do not clearly connect the points that follow. Group the changes by location or by what stayed versus what changed, and use clear references such as “along the north wall” and “by contrast” to make comparisons easier to follow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant vocabulary for describing a plan, including “reconstructed,” “replaced,” “construction” and “outdoor seating,” and you attempt to vary the wording rather than relying only on “changed.” However, noticeable spelling and word-choice errors reduce precision: “dinning,” “unchaged,” “posiyion,” “entrence,” “sustituted” and “toli ets” (written as “toli ets” in the response) make parts less clear. Some expressions are also unnatural, such as “the area experienced the significant development” and “the seating area is expended.” Use standard plan-description collocations and check spelling carefully. More precise location vocabulary would also help distinguish the western salad bar from the eastern recycling bins.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt a mixture of simple statements and longer sentences, including clauses with “which” and “while,” but control is inconsistent. Errors occur in basic agreement and verb forms: “The two plans illustrates” should be “illustrate,” and “kitchen remain” should be “the kitchen remains.” Articles and sentence construction are also problematic in “experienced the significant development,” while “The staff dinning rooms bin area is substituted” lacks a clear grammatical relationship between the two items. Punctuation is uneven, including the missing space after the comma in “northwest,while.” These errors sometimes make relationships between features difficult to understand. Practise accurate present-tense descriptions and build longer sentences around one clear comparison at a time.

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