Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-10-04

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You have bought some clothing online and are not satisfied with your purchase.

Write a letter to the company that you bought the clothing from. In your email:

• give details of the purchase
• describe the problem
• explain why you need a replacement urgently

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Student answer (Band 6.0)

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to complaint about my recent purchase from your website and I need a replacement as soon as possible.

I ordered a dress last week from your official website which was promoted on social media. The purpose of this dress is that I want to wear this on our upcoming national Independance day and I participated on this festival which will be held by Government of India.

Firstly, size of the attire is completely wrong which I bought from the website. Secondily, dress is not even looks like brand new, it is very dirty and stinky.

I am not satisfied with this order because the quality company promoted was attractive and catchy. Moving forward, I need a urgent replacement of the dress due to Independance day is coming next week. This event is very important for me because I practiced a lot for this performance.

Please look into the matter and do the needful.

Yours faithfully,

Gourav

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

You successfully address all three bullet points required in the task instructions. You provide details of the purchase by mentioning the dress ordered last week, describe the problem clearly by stating that the size is completely wrong and the item is dirty and stinky, and explain why a replacement is needed urgently for an upcoming performance on Independence Day. However, some ideas show features of the next band while remaining slightly under-developed; for example, the explanation of the event could be extended further to fully justify the urgency. Overall, your response covers all parts of the prompt adequately and presents a clear purpose from the beginning to the end of the letter.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

Your letter has a coherent overall arrangement and a logical progression of ideas, moving smoothly from the initial complaint to the description of the issues and finally to the urgent request and concluding remarks. You use paragraphing sufficiently and appropriately to separate your points, which helps guide the reader through the text. However, cohesion is occasionally mechanical or faulty, such as the abrupt transitions between paragraphs and the repetitive sentence openings. To reach a higher level, you could make greater use of sophisticated cohesive devices and referencing to connect your ideas more naturally across sentences.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common lexical items such as 'promoted on social media' and 'official website'. However, there are noticeable errors in word choice, word form, and spelling that reflect the characteristics of this band level, such as writing 'complaint' instead of the verb 'complain', 'Independance' instead of 'Independence', and 'Secondily' instead of 'Secondly'. Furthermore, phrases like 'the dress is not even looks like brand new' show awkward collocations and word forms. These inaccuracies do not completely impede communication, but they restrict your score and show that vocabulary control needs greater precision and consistency.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You use a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating control over basic structures like 'I am writing to...' and attempting more complex constructions such as 'I participated on this festival which will be held...'. There are some errors in grammar and punctuation throughout your text, including missing articles (e.g., 'size of the attire' instead of 'the size'), incorrect prepositions (e.g., 'participated on this festival' instead of 'in'), and tense inconsistencies. Fortunately, these errors rarely impede communication and the meaning remains clear. To achieve a higher band, you need to increase your range of error-free complex structures and improve your control over articles and prepositions.

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

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