Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-18

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 plans chart show a college cafe before it was redesigned and how it looks today

overall the cafe has changed a lot . The staff dinning rooms have been removed and new facilities, inculding a salad bar, a coffee bar and outdoor seating have been added

Before the redesign, kitchen was locates the left top coner of the cafe. A serving area all of food and drinking. Next there were two staff dinning rooms and tables and chairs decroated a outsides. And toilets on bottom right the corner.

today kitchen remain in the same place, but it now a separate area for hot meal. the salad bar has been added to the left side. The two dinning rooms have been replaced by a take away food and coffee bar. tables and chairs still accupy on the central area. The toilets remain on the right side, and outdoor seating added outside the cafe.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You identify the main change—the staff dining rooms were removed and facilities such as a salad bar, coffee bar and outdoor seating were added—and correctly note that the kitchen and toilets stayed in place. However, several important details are omitted, including the recycling bins, the barbecue, and the two new doors to the outdoor area. The description of the former serving area is also incomplete, and “tables and chairs decroated a outsides” does not clearly report the original layout. The response is 141 words, below the required 150; the 12 words copied from the prompt are excluded. Add a little more accurate detail and make the overall comparison clearer.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a basic, sensible structure: an opening overview is followed by a description of the former café and then the current layout. The contrast between “Before the redesign” and “today” helps the reader follow the time sequence. However, progression within the paragraphs is sometimes unclear, particularly in the sentence beginning “Next there were two staff dinning rooms,” where several features are joined without clear relationships. Some links are missing or repetitive, and the opening sentence runs into the overview without clear punctuation. Use complete, clearly separated sentences and organise details by location or by what changed and what remained to make the account easier to follow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant vocabulary for describing a plan, including “redesigned,” “facilities,” “replaced,” “central area,” and “remain.” These choices show an attempt to describe both changes and unchanged features. However, spelling and word-choice errors are noticeable, for example “dinning,” “locates,” “coner,” “accupy,” and “decroated.” Some phrases are also imprecise: “a separate area for hot meal” and “tables and chairs still accupy on the central area” do not express the layout naturally. Build accuracy with common plan-description collocations and check spelling carefully; more precise terms will help communicate locations and changes without ambiguity.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple statements and longer sentences, and the reader can generally understand the broad comparison. However, grammatical errors occur frequently and sometimes make relationships between features unclear. Examples include “The plans chart show,” “Before the redesign, kitchen was locates,” and “The toilets remain on the right side, and outdoor seating added outside the cafe.” These show problems with subject–verb agreement, articles, verb forms and missing auxiliaries. Sentence boundaries and punctuation are also inconsistent, as in the opening, which joins the introduction and overview without a full stop. Practise accurate basic sentence patterns first, then add longer comparisons using correctly formed verbs and articles.

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

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