Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-10-28

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

Your English-speaking friend who lives in your town has asked for your advice about learning a new sport. Write an email to your friend. In your email:

• recommend a new sport that would be suitable for your friend to learn
• explain how your friend could learn this sport
• suggest that you both learn this sport together

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

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

 

Student answer (Band 6.5)

Dear Smith,

I Hope this letter finds you in good health. I received your letter yesterday about seeking advice for learning a new sport.

Recently a football academy has opened near your home. I think you should learn to play football.

It's a good sport to keep you physically active and kill your free time. Football teaches us team work and keeps the person mentally active. It teaches us startegies to win against the opponent team and sense of healthy competition is created among the players. It will also helps you to socialise with the locals and make new friends.

The football academy offers a course of four weeks to learn the game first and later on join their selected teams for the regular matches on every sunday. The classes are held twice a week which are easy to manage. Coach teaches us everything one needs to learn before joining the team on a proper match.

I think we can both join the academy together. It will be fun to learn a new sport together as I have always been fond of learning football but did not get a chance to do so. I will be eagerly waiting for your decision.

Yours sincerely,

Ashley.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.5

You address all three requirements clearly: football is recommended, the nearby academy and its four-week course explain how to learn, and you invite your friend to join you. The advice is relevant and supported with practical details, including classes twice a week and regular matches. Your reasons—fitness, teamwork and meeting local people—also make the recommendation persuasive. This is a strong response because the purpose remains clear throughout and the main ideas are extended. To make the advice even more fully developed, explain briefly why football suits this particular friend, rather than relying mainly on general benefits, and clarify how to find or enrol in the academy. The friendly closing also gives the email a clear sense of purpose.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 7.0

The email follows a clear, logical progression: you acknowledge your friend’s request, recommend football, describe the academy, and then suggest learning together. Paragraphing supports these distinct stages, and links such as “Recently,” “The football academy,” and “I think we can both” help the reader follow the message. The ideas within the recommendation paragraph are also connected by a consistent focus on football’s benefits. At times, however, the list of benefits feels slightly repetitive, and the transition from general advantages to the academy’s course could be smoother. Grouping related benefits and using a more explicit link to the practical learning details would make the progression feel more flexible and polished.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You use an adequate range of vocabulary for the purpose, including relevant expressions such as “physically active,” “healthy competition,” “regular matches,” and “socialise with the locals.” These choices make the recommendation understandable and give the email some variety. There are also attempts at less common vocabulary, but a few choices or collocations are inaccurate or unnatural: “kill your free time” would be better expressed as “make good use of your free time,” and “strategies to win against the opponent team” is awkward. “Team work” is usually written as one word, and “startegies” is misspelled. More precise, natural phrasing and careful proofreading would strengthen the vocabulary while preserving your clear meaning.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and more complex sentence forms, and most of the message remains easy to understand. For example, “It will be fun to learn a new sport together as I have always been fond of learning football” combines ideas effectively. Some grammatical errors remain, particularly in verb forms and agreement: “It will also helps you” should be “It will also help you,” while “Coach teaches us everything” needs an article or plural form, such as “The coach teaches us.” Capitalisation and punctuation also need attention, as in “I Hope” and “every sunday.” These errors rarely obstruct the message, but checking subject–verb agreement, articles and sentence-level punctuation would improve accuracy and control.

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