Task 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.
The maps below show the campus of a university in 2000 and in 2025.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
Task 2
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
In many countries, governments are increasingly using facial recognition cameras and other surveillance technology to monitor people in public places such as streets, stations and shopping centres.
Do the advantages of this outweigh the disadvantages?
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
What a Band 8–9 response must demonstrate
Measured against the four official assessment criteria — specific to this test's two tasks.
Task Achievement
- Gives a clear overview of the overall transformation: the campus became far more built-up, with academic facilities replacing open and vehicle space in the centre, while parking and sport were pushed to the south-east corner and a lake was added.
- Selects and groups the changes (what was replaced: sports field → Science Building, library → lake, car park → New Library; what was relocated: car park, road, sports provision; what was added: café, cycle path) rather than listing every feature in random order.
- Notes what did not change — the Main Building, Lecture Halls and Halls of Residence remain in place — since unchanged features are a legitimate main feature in a map comparison.
- Describes only what the maps show; no speculation about student numbers, funding or why the road was moved.
Coherence & Cohesion
- Organises spatially or by type of change (replacements / relocations / additions), with one clear idea per paragraph, rather than hopping around the map.
- Uses location language accurately and consistently ("in the north-east of the site", "to the south of the cycle path", "where the car park once stood") so the reader can follow without looking at the map.
- Cohesive devices show change over time ("by 2025", "in its place", "meanwhile", "the former") and are not mechanically stacked.
Lexical Resource
- Controls the verbs of change that map tasks demand: demolished, replaced by, converted into, relocated to, extended, reduced in size, rerouted, constructed.
- Uses precise nouns for features (car park, woodland, lecture halls, halls of residence, cycle path) without resorting to vague words such as "thing" or "area" throughout.
- Varies compass and positional language (northern edge, south-east corner, adjacent to, opposite, along the boundary).
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- Uses the passive voice appropriately and accurately for changes whose agent is unknown ("the sports field was built over", "a lake has been created").
- Mixes past simple for the 2000 state with present perfect or past simple for what had happened by 2025, keeping the time frame consistent within each paragraph.
- Handles complex sentences with relative clauses and participle phrases ("the woodland, which previously stretched across the south of the site, was reduced to make room for…") with rare, non-impeding errors.
Task Response
- Takes a clear position on whether the benefits outweigh the drawbacks and states it in the introduction — "there are pros and cons" is not an answer to an outweigh question.
- Weighs both sides genuinely: acknowledges real advantages (finding missing people, deterring crime, managing crowds) and real disadvantages (misidentification, chilling effect on protest, data breaches, mission creep) before judging which is heavier.
- Engages with the specific framing — governments, facial recognition, public places — rather than writing a generic essay about technology or privacy.
- Supports claims with concrete, plausible illustrations (e.g. how a false match affects an innocent person; how live scanning at a station differs from a CCTV recording) rather than unsupported assertions.
Coherence & Cohesion
- Uses a structure that matches the judgement: typically one paragraph on the weaker side, one on the stronger side, with the stronger side receiving more development, followed by a conclusion that restates the weighing.
- Each paragraph has a single controlling idea signalled by its topic sentence, and the paragraphs progress towards the verdict rather than sitting side by side.
- Cohesion is achieved through referencing and logical signposting ("this trade-off", "such systems", "set against this") rather than a linker at the start of every sentence.
Lexical Resource
- Uses precise topic vocabulary: surveillance, biometric data, civil liberties, consent, false positives, accountability, oversight, deterrent, proportionality, anonymity.
- Paraphrases the prompt in the introduction ("monitor people in public places" → "track citizens' movements in shared spaces") rather than reproducing it.
- Employs natural collocations and hedged evaluative language ("a disproportionate intrusion", "marginal gains in security", "open to abuse") without forcing in rare words.
Grammatical Range & Accuracy
- Uses concession and contrast structures under control ("Although such systems can…, the cost is…", "While proponents argue…"), which the weighing task demands.
- Handles conditionals and modals for hedged argument ("if this data were leaked", "is likely to", "may well") with accurate form.
- Shows a wide range of sentence types, including cleft sentences for emphasis ("What makes this dangerous is…") and accurate punctuation of complex sentences; errors are rare.
Common traps for this specific test
The mistakes most likely to cost marks on these two questions.
Describing everything on the 2000 map and then everything on the 2025 map forces the reader to do the comparison. The task is to report the changes: what replaced what, what moved where, and what stayed the same.
The Main Building, Lecture Halls and Halls of Residence are unchanged. A Band 7+ overview mentions this, because continuity is a main feature of the comparison, not an omission.
The car park was relocated (it still exists, in the south-east) while the sports field was replaced (its site became the Science Building) and a smaller pitch appeared elsewhere. Mixing these up misreports the map.
The main road moved from the middle of the site to the northern edge, and a cycle path now runs where it was. Candidates often describe buildings only and overlook infrastructure changes, which are usually a key feature in Cambridge map tasks.
"The library moved to the other side" or "near the top" loses marks. Use compass points and relative position: "to the north-west of the site, on the former car park".
"Do the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?" requires a verdict. Concluding that "both sides have merit and it depends" fails to answer the question and caps Task Response at Band 6.
The prompt concerns government use of facial recognition in public places. Essays that drift into social media data, workplace monitoring or cameras in homes are not addressing the task.
Naming three benefits and three drawbacks in equal, undeveloped sentences is a list, not an argument. The verdict must be supported by showing why one side carries more weight — for example, that the harm of a false match is irreversible while the security gain is marginal.