Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-20

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 maps below compare a college canteen before it was renovated and how it looks currently. Overall, the map before the proposed development has a kitchen, a dining room for staff and sitting area for customer inside the cafe but the map after it was renovated has introduce some new replacement, take away food and coffee bar replace the staff dining area and has an outdoor seating for customers.

To begin with, the plan before have a kitchen with the serving area at the top left corner of the cafe but cafe today has hot meal in kitchen, the dining rooms for staff are replace by take away food and coffee bar rooms. and the bin on the right side is expanded and at same place.

A salad bar is open inside the canteen, seating area for consumer inside the cafe in both maps but the cafe after redesigned introduce outdoor seating as well a barbecue with an outside seating that might be impress the customers.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

You identify the main change in the north of the café: the staff dining rooms are replaced by takeaway food and a coffee bar, and you mention the new outdoor seating and barbecue. You also note that the central seating area remains. However, several important details are missing or unclear, including the salad bar, the recycling bins, and the toilets’ unchanged position. The statement that the bin “is expanded” is inaccurate: it is replaced by recycling bins in the same general location. Your overview gives a broad sense of the redesign, but the comparison is not consistently precise, and some features are only briefly reported. To strengthen the response, describe the main changes systematically and distinguish clearly between what stayed the same and what was added or replaced.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The response has a basic structure: an opening overview followed by two paragraphs describing features. This gives the reader a general route through the comparison, and phrases such as “before” and “today” help signal the two plans. However, progression within the paragraphs is sometimes difficult to follow. The second paragraph combines the kitchen, serving counter, staff rooms and bin without clear links, while the final paragraph moves from the salad bar to seating and then to the outdoor area. Some connections are awkward or incomplete, such as “but the cafe after redesigned introduce.” Organise the details by location or by change—for example, north, interior, then exterior—and use clear comparison phrases to make relationships between features easier to follow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant vocabulary for describing a plan, including “kitchen,” “serving area,” “staff dining area,” “salad bar” and “outdoor seating.” This gives you enough basic language to communicate the general redesign. However, several word choices and collocations are inaccurate or repetitive: “has introduce some new replacement” is unclear, “the bin … is expanded” misrepresents the change, and “might be impress the customers” is an unsupported comment rather than a neutral description. “Canteen,” “cafe” and “dining room” are also used inconsistently. Aim for precise map-description language, such as “was replaced by,” “was added,” and “remained unchanged,” and avoid speculating about customers’ reactions.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and longer sentences, including a comparison beginning “Overall” and clauses linked with “but.” However, control is inconsistent, and errors often make the relationships between features harder to understand. Examples include “the plan before have,” “the map after it was renovated has introduce,” and “the dining rooms for staff are replace,” where tense and verb forms are faulty. There are also sentence-boundary and punctuation problems, such as the full stop before “and the bin” and the lower-case sentence opening “and.” Articles and agreement are also unreliable in phrases such as “has an outdoor seating.” Practise past simple for the former plan and present simple for the current one, and check each sentence for a complete, correctly formed verb.

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