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 two maps illustrate a college cafe before it was redesigned and how it looks now.

Overall, cafe before redesign shows kitchen, serving area, staff dining rooms tables and chairs and a side area for toilets with bin but after renovation, serving area changed with hot meals and new addition of slad bar and outdoor seating was also added with barbecue area.

Cafe before redesigned, on west side there was a kitchen with small area of serving like all food and drinks. On middle area, ther was tables and chairs for sitting with side area of staff dining rooms. on the corner of east side, there were toilets dor tourists with a bin on sides of toilets.

After renovation of new cafe.Kitchen is still on the same are on west side but with replacment of hot meals with serving area. In middle, there are still tables and chairs but with littel addition as on west side there is a salad bas area, on north side there are two addition of takeaway food and coffee bar. Similarly on eat side toilets are still same but bins are now recycling bins.The main addition of the whole map is outdoor sitting and barbecue area for the one who wants to sit outside.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You identify the main change from a staff-oriented layout to a café with more food options and outdoor seating, and you note that the kitchen, central tables and chairs, and toilets remain. These are relevant features, and your overview gives the reader a general sense of the redesign. However, some details are unclear or inaccurate: the serving counter is relabelled for hot meals, rather than the serving area simply being “replaced,” and the two new northern sections are takeaway food and a coffee bar. The outdoor seating and barbecue are important additions, but their location and the new southern doors are not explained. Develop the comparisons more precisely and organise the key changes by area.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a recognisable structure: an introduction, an overview, and separate descriptions of the earlier and current layouts. This helps the reader follow the broad before-and-after comparison. However, progression within paragraphs is sometimes difficult to track, particularly in the long overview sentence, which combines several changes without clear grouping. Linking phrases such as “Similarly” and “but” are used, but some connections are awkward or do not clearly show the relationship between features. The description also shifts between west, middle, north and east without consistently guiding the reader through the plan. Use shorter, clearly organised sentences and group details by location or by what stayed the same versus what changed.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use relevant plan vocabulary, including “kitchen,” “tables and chairs,” “salad bar,” “recycling bins,” and “outdoor seating,” so the main features can generally be identified. There is some attempt to vary wording with “redesigned,” “renovation,” and “addition.” However, spelling errors such as “slad,” “ther,” “replacment,” and “littel” are noticeable, and several phrases are imprecise or unnatural, including “small area of serving like all food and drinks” and “outdoor sitting.” These choices sometimes make the layout harder to understand. Aim for accurate, concise labels and natural collocations, such as “serving counter,” “staff dining rooms,” and “outdoor seating area.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more extended sentence forms, and the reader can usually understand the intended comparison. However, grammatical control is uneven, with errors in articles, agreement, sentence boundaries and verb forms. For example, “cafe before redesign shows” needs an article and a more suitable tense, while “there are two addition” has incorrect number agreement. The fragment “After renovation of new cafe.Kitchen…” also needs a complete sentence and correct punctuation. Some sentences combine several ideas with limited control, as in the overview, making relationships unclear. Practise accurate past-tense descriptions of the former plan and present-tense descriptions of the current one, while checking articles, plurals and punctuation.

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