Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-09-18

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

The parents of your Australian friend Chris have invited you to a surprise birthday party for him/her. Write a letter to Chris's parents. In your letter:

• say why you think Chris will enjoy the surprise party
• explain why you won't be able to attend the party
• give details of a plan to see Chris at a different time

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Mr and Mrs Collins,

Student answer (Band 6.5)

Dear Mr and Mrs Collins,

I hope you both are doing well. I was informed about a surprise birthday party for chris last week when you spoke to my parents. I am writing to inform you that unfortunately I could not attend the birthday party due to upcoming scheduled exams and interviews at multi-national companies.

Firstly, it's a great idea to organise a surprise party for chris on his 18th birthday. Moreover, he will definitely enjoy the decorum and people around him when he will receive gifts and blessings from his grandparents and other friends. Surely, he will be proud himself when he will officially turns into adulthood on next week.

However, I would not be able to attend the party on his ausipicious day due to last semester exams as well as I have been preparing for interviews for software developer roles. Additionally, it seems almost impossible to purchase a ticket to Australia from Canada within a week along with packing.

I already had a plan to send an archery set as a gift for him. It is already in transit and he will get the surprise gift on his birthday. Nevertheless, I am planning to visit Australia next month as I will be on summer vacation and hopefully we would enjoy summer days in Sydney and Melbourne beaches playing basketball on sand.

I wish him the very happy birthday in advance. Cheers!

Best Wishes,

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AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 7.0

You successfully covered all three bullet points required in the task instructions. You explained why Chris will enjoy the party by highlighting the decorum, family blessings, and milestone nature of his 18th birthday. You clearly explained why you cannot attend due to upcoming semester exams and job interviews, and you provided a concrete plan to see him next month during your summer vacation in Australia. Your tone is appropriately friendly and polite, fitting the general letter format. However, there is a minor contradiction in your letter where you mention first that you cannot attend due to exams and interviews, and then later in the second body paragraph you repeat this point and add travel distance as another reason. Overall, your ideas are well-developed, and all parts of the prompt are addressed effectively.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

Your letter demonstrates a clear overall progression and logical organization. You make good use of paragraphing, separating your introduction, reasons for enjoying the party, reasons for non-attendance, alternative plans, and sign-off into distinct sections. You also use cohesive devices such as 'Firstly', 'Moreover', and 'Nevertheless' to guide the reader through your ideas. However, there are some minor mechanical issues with cohesion and referencing. For instance, you repeat the reason for not attending in two separate paragraphs ('could not attend' in paragraph one and 'would not be able to attend' in paragraph three), which disrupts the logical flow slightly. Overall, paragraphing is used appropriately and the relationships between ideas are clear.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

You demonstrate an adequate and functional range of vocabulary for the task, successfully incorporating less common lexical items such as 'decorum', 'auspicious', and 'multi-national companies'. However, there are some noticeable inaccuracies in word choice, spelling, and collocation. For instance, 'decorum' is used incorrectly here to describe a festive party atmosphere, 'auspicious' is misspelled as 'ausipicious', and 'turns into adulthood' is unnatural phrasing. You also capitalized 'chris' in places where it should be capitalized as a proper noun. These lexical errors do not impede communication, but they prevent the vocabulary score from reaching a higher band. Focusing on natural collocations will help improve this area.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, including relative clauses and conditional ideas. There are several grammatical errors and punctuation slips throughout the text. For example, you wrote 'I hope you both are doing well', which should ideally be 'I hope you are both doing well' or 'I hope both of you are doing well'. You also made tense and agreement errors such as 'he will officially turns into adulthood on next week', where 'turns' should be 'turn' and 'on next week' should simply be 'next week'. Additionally, there are minor capitalization errors with names like 'chris'. Despite these errors, your meaning is always clear, and the sentences remain communicative.

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

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