Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-10-04

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You recently booked a part-time course at a college. You now need to cancel your booking.

Write a letter to the college administrator. In your letter:

• say which part-time course you booked
• explain why you need to cancel your booking
• ask about booking a different course

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear Sir/Madam

I want to cancel a booking of a part-time course.

Well, I am a culniary student in your niagara college and in the early morning when I wad trying to book a gernal elective cource for complete my studies. by mistake, I choosen clun1114 rather than choosing Culn1115 I want to cancle my booking for this part-time course.

I need to cancel this booking because this course is not elegible to give me credit points thats why I need to cancle it.

I request you to move me in Culn1115 for completeing my studies.

I look forward to hearing from you soon

Your faithfully

Paras Soni

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

For this criterion, the response sits at the designated band because it only partially addresses the task requirements. While you successfully mention which part-time course you booked, explain why you need to cancel it, and ask about booking a different course, your ideas remain rather limited and under-developed. Furthermore, the length requirement is not met, as the response contains only 108 words, which falls short of the 150-word minimum. To reach a higher level, you need to expand your ideas more fully, provide more context about your situation, and ensure you meet the minimum word count required for the task.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

Your letter shows a coherent overall arrangement and follows a logical structure for a formal request. You use an appropriate opening and closing, and the progression of your ideas is generally easy to follow. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or basic, and paragraphing could be managed more effectively to separate your points distinctly. To achieve a higher band, you should make more natural use of a variety of cohesive devices to link your sentences and ideas smoothly, ensuring that referencing and transitions between your points are handled with greater clarity and sophistication.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms like 'part-time course' and 'booking'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word choice errors throughout your writing, such as 'culniary' instead of culinary, 'gernal' instead of general, 'cource' instead of course, 'choosen' instead of chose, 'cancle' instead of cancel, and 'elegible' instead of eligible. These errors cause some difficulty for the reader and reflect a limited lexical range. To improve, you need to expand your vocabulary, use less common lexical items accurately, and carefully check your spelling before finishing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

Your writing displays a limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on simple sentences and basic connectors. When you attempt more complex structures, such as in the sentence beginning with 'Well, I am a culinary student...', grammatical errors appear, including incorrect verb tenses like 'wad trying' and 'choosen'. There are frequent errors in grammar, punctuation, and capitalization that cause difficulty for the reader, such as missing periods between sentences and incorrect capitalization in 'niagara college'. To reach a higher band, you need to demonstrate a greater variety of complex sentence forms with improved accuracy and better control over punctuation.

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

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