Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-22

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 college cafe plan illustrates its before and after design. The renovation clearly shows how everything has been upgraded from kitchen to toilets.

Cafe's before designing was very obvious and basic, it had kitchen and serving area with all type of food and drink, thus it also had staff dining room as well. Bin was located at left side of the toilets. Tables and chairs were present at the centre of hall, infront of Staff dining rooms. Entrance and exit gates were left of the Bin.

Renovation of cafe made it's infrastructure better as the addition of Hot meals were added infront of Kitchen. Salad bar and Barbecue had their own spots, their was an outdoor seating added as well. Entrance and exit door were installed as well. Staff dining room was converted to take away food option and the second portion was converted to coffee bar. Therefore, two sitting area were in new design, inside and outside. Barbecue addition made outside sitting more attractive place to sit.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You cover the before-and-after comparison and identify several key changes, including the new hot-meal counter, salad bar, outdoor seating and barbecue, as well as the conversion of the staff dining rooms. However, some details are inaccurate or unclear: the bin was on the eastern side, not the “left side” of the toilets, and the entrance was on the upper-right wall rather than “left of the Bin.” The overview that everything was “upgraded” is also evaluative and does not clearly summarise the main spatial changes. You mention that toilets remain, but could make this and the unchanged central seating area part of a clearer overview. More precise descriptions of locations and a fuller account of the new recycling bins would make the report more complete.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The response has a generally clear before-and-after structure: the second paragraph describes the original café, and the final paragraph focuses on the redesign. This gives the reader a basic progression through the plans. Some linking is mechanical or unclear, however. For example, “thus it also had staff dining room as well” adds little, while “Therefore” does not clearly express a consequence in the sentence about the two seating areas. The opening overview is brief and does not organise the main changes into a clear summary. Use a separate overview and group details by area or by what stayed the same and what changed. Clearer references, such as specifying which two sections became the takeaway counter and coffee bar, would also improve flow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use relevant vocabulary for describing the plan, including “serving area,” “staff dining room,” “Salad bar” and “outdoor seating,” so the main features are usually recognisable. However, several choices are imprecise or unnatural for a formal plan description. “Everything has been upgraded” makes an unsupported judgement, and “Entrance and exit gates” is not the most suitable term for the doors shown. Phrases such as “their own spots” and “more attractive place to sit” are informal or vague. There are also word-form and spelling issues, including “Cafe's before designing” and “infront.” Aim for precise spatial language and consistent formal phrasing, such as “located along the eastern wall” or “was replaced by.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more complex sentences, including a sentence linking the staff-room conversion to the new café facilities. However, grammatical control is uneven, and errors sometimes make relationships between features difficult to follow. Examples include “Cafe's before designing was,” where the subject and verb do not agree, and “the addition of Hot meals were added,” which combines two incompatible constructions. There are also errors in articles and plurals, as in “two sitting area,” and in sentence structure, such as “Barbecue addition made outside sitting more attractive place to sit.” Practise forming clear passive descriptions of changes—for example, “The staff dining rooms were replaced by a takeaway area and a coffee bar”—and check agreement, articles and plural endings.

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