Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-09-19

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

A museum near your home is looking for people to do part-time voluntary/unpaid work. You would like to do some voluntary/unpaid work at the museum. Write a letter to the museum director to apply for the voluntary/unpaid work. In your letter

• explain why you want to do voluntary/unpaid work at the museum
• describe some skills and qualities you have that would be useful
• give details of when you would be available for work

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Student answer (Band 5.0)

Dear, Sumit kumar

My name is Arjun kumar and I am writing this letter about the volunteer work .I have seen a post on social media about your muesum that, you are looking for the people to do part -time volunteer work in your musium.I know lots of people my be interested in this oppertunity and I want to do it too the reason behind my interest doing volunteer is that ,recently I have done my social work deploma from cambian college and I am looking to get some field experince also I like to read books about history and keep my self updated with news.I believe that it will be a good start for me .About my availability these days I am not doing anything I can come for morning shift or evening shift whenever you feels like you need more people to help in your museum.one more good thing is I live close to the museum and it will be easy for me to come and go anytime .

I will look forword for your reply on this.

Thanks

Arjun kumar

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The candidate has successfully addressed all three bullet points of the task instructions. The letter explains the reason for wanting to do volunteer work, noting the recent completion of a social work diploma at Cambrian College and the desire to gain field experience alongside a personal interest in history. Furthermore, the response describes useful skills and qualities, mentioning that the author lives close to the museum and keeps updated with news, and gives details of availability by stating a readiness to work morning or evening shifts. However, the greeting used is incorrect ('Dear, Sumit kumar' instead of the required 'Dear Sir or Madam') and the tone lacks formal letter-writing conventions, which impacts the overall communicative purpose slightly. Despite these format and tone issues, all content requirements are covered adequately, earning a solid Band 5.5.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The letter lacks proper paragraphing, as the entire body of the response is written as a single, dense run-on block of text. This makes the logical progression harder to follow than necessary. Although the ideas follow a logical sequence from the introduction to the reason, skills, and availability, cohesive devices are poorly managed, with heavy reliance on comma splices and run-on sentences rather than appropriate conjunctions or full stops. For instance, sentences are chained together using simple commas ('...volunteer work, recently I have done...'). Referencing is sometimes unclear, and paragraphing is absent. This level of organisation aligns closely with the Band 5 descriptors.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student uses a limited but minimally adequate range of vocabulary for the task, such as 'volunteer work', 'social media', and 'history'. There are several noticeable spelling errors ('muesum', 'musium', 'oppertunity', 'deploma', 'experince', 'forword') and inaccurate word choices like 'doing anything' to mean having a flexible schedule. These errors cause some distraction for the reader and reflect a vocabulary range that struggles to move beyond basic, everyday expressions. While communication is still achieved, the frequency of spelling mistakes and the lack of precise academic or professional leксика keeps this criterion firmly at Band 5.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response features a very limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on long, poorly punctuated compound sentences joined improperly with commas. There are frequent grammatical and punctuation errors throughout, including missing capitalization at the beginning of sentences, missing articles, and awkward phrasing such as 'whenever you feels like'. Complex structures are attempted unsuccessfully, leading to frequent errors that cause difficulty for the reader and require extra effort to parse the intended meaning. Because error-free sentences are rare and punctuation control is weak, this falls under the Band 4.5 to 5.0 range, comfortably supported at Band 5.0.

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

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