Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 17 · 2026-10-12

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 Mam,

I am writing this letter to show my dissatisfaction with my recent purchase from Midas clothing Company.

Last Saturday I ordered a French wedding dress worth of CAD 150, the color of the dress is white with the pached work on it.The dress is elegent and well designed from each borders of it.

Overall everything was great with the dress until I found a hole at the bottom of the dress which I noticed yesterday.Since the day, dress arrived I just have worn it once only but yesterday when I was showing dress to my friend, I caught the fault in my dress.

The reason for requesting a replacement is I need to go to the wedding after three days and I do not want to wear any other dress at a time.I would really appreciate if you could do my delivery for the exchange of dress as early as possible.

Kind Regards

Achu

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The letter addresses all three required points: it identifies the purchase as a white French wedding dress costing CAD 150, explains that there is a hole at the bottom, and says a wedding in three days makes a replacement urgent. The purpose is clear and the request for an exchange is appropriate. Some details are less fully developed, however: the order date is given as “Last Saturday,” but there is no order number or clear delivery date, and the urgency could be made more persuasive by stating when the replacement must arrive. The description of the dress’s decoration is not essential to the complaint. A more explicit request for confirmation of expedited delivery would make the letter more complete and purposeful.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The information is arranged in a sensible sequence: the opening states the purpose, the next paragraph gives purchase details, the following paragraph describes the defect, and the final paragraph explains the urgency and requests an exchange. This clear paragraphing helps the reader follow the complaint. Some links between ideas are less smooth, particularly “Overall everything was great with the dress until I found a hole,” which is an awkward transition from the purchase description to the problem. “Since the day, dress arrived” also makes the timeline difficult to follow. Use clearer transitions such as “However” and make references to the dress and the dates explicit. The organisation is effective overall, though cohesion is not consistently natural.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary is sufficient to communicate the complaint, with relevant terms such as “purchase,” “replacement,” “wedding,” and “hole.” There are also attempts at more descriptive language, including “well designed” and “pached work,” but some choices are inaccurate or misspelled, which reduces precision and naturalness. “Worth of CAD 150” is not the usual way to state a price, and “do my delivery for the exchange” is unclear as a request. Spelling errors such as “elegent” and “pached” are noticeable. Aim for accurate, conventional wording in a formal complaint, for example, “costing CAD 150,” “embroidered detailing,” and “arrange expedited delivery.”

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The letter uses a mix of simple sentences and some longer structures, including “Since the day, dress arrived I just have worn it once only but yesterday when I was showing dress to my friend, I caught the fault in my dress.” The main message remains understandable, but several grammatical errors make parts less fluent. Articles are missing in “Since the day, dress arrived” and “showing dress,” while “I just have worn it once only” has an awkward tense and redundant construction. The sentence about the dress’s colour and decoration joins two independent ideas without suitable punctuation. Use clearer sentence boundaries and check articles, tense, and clause structure; for example, “Since it arrived, I have worn it only once.”

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