Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.0 · Cambridge IELTS 15 · 2026-08-27

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

A friend of yours is thinking about applying for the same course that you did at university. He/She has asked for your advice about studying this subject. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter

• give details of the course you took at the university
• explain why you recommend the university
• give some advice about how to apply

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear .................. ,

Student answer (Band 4.0)

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing this letter to share my wonderful experience about the cooking course that I did last month this year.

I was one of your students from the summer cooking classes, and I learned a variety of maxican dishes.No doubt , it enhanced my culinary skills. Moreover, the best part was that you provide a book which contained all the reciepes.

I had used my cooking skills at one of my friends' birthday parties. I made tacos and loaded nachos, and everybody liked it.

I'd suggest you to add some courses of Indian foods because the festival season is around the corner, and I'd love to join your institute one more time for this particular course.

I hope you will consider my feedback.

Kind regards,

Gurpreet Kaur.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 3.0

The response fails to address the prompt entirely. The instructions explicitly ask you to write a letter to a friend who is considering applying for a university course you previously took. Instead, you have written a letter to an institution providing feedback on a cooking class. Consequently, you have not provided details of a university course, explained why you recommend a university, or given advice on how to apply. Furthermore, the response is under the 150-word minimum requirement. Due to the complete failure to address the task requirements, the score is significantly impacted.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 4.0

The letter follows a basic structure with an opening and closing, but the progression of ideas is illogical because the content is off-topic. While there are some attempts at cohesive devices such as 'Moreover' and 'I'd suggest', the lack of relevance to the prompt makes the overall flow disjointed. Paragraphing is present, but the paragraphs do not serve the purpose of the requested task. To improve, ensure that each paragraph directly addresses one of the bullet points provided in the instructions.

Lexical Resource — Band 4.5

The vocabulary is quite limited and contains several spelling errors, such as 'maxican' (Mexican) and 'reciepes' (recipes). The range is insufficient to express complex ideas, relying on very basic phrasing. While the meaning is generally clear, the lack of variety and the presence of spelling mistakes prevent a higher score. To improve, focus on learning topic-specific vocabulary and proofreading for common spelling errors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.5

The grammar is simple and contains several errors. For example, 'I am writing this letter to share my wonderful experience about the cooking course that I did last month this year' is awkward and grammatically imprecise. There are also issues with punctuation, such as the space before the comma in 'No doubt ,'. The sentence structures are repetitive and lack the complexity required for higher bands. Focus on using a wider variety of sentence structures and ensuring subject-verb agreement.

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

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