Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-08-12

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You are planning a business trip to another city. You will have some free time to do some sightseeing while you are there.
 

Write a letter to a friend who lives in the city you will visit. In your letter:
• explain the purpose of the trip.
• ask about things to do and see in the city.
• invite your friend to do something with you during your visit.

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear ____

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear Dhillion,

I hope you are doing well in your life. I am writing this letter to let you that for business work i will come to city and want to visit some tourist spots during spare time.

Firstly, I want to know that what type of activities i can do in your hometown like golf, swimming etc. Additionally, as love to see new things at different places to make memoriable memories for whole life . so , please suggest me that what your city have to enjoy the views for coming trip days.

Most important one , we are getting together after long time to spend some quality of together to enjoy and remember childhood or school life . Also , we will do outdoor activities with each other like as remembered that you loved to play carram before . so , we will sit to together enjoy drinks , talk and play carram board to spend lovely time.

i apprecite your patience and wait to see u soon.

yours faithfully,

manraj

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

You have addressed all three bullet points required by the prompt: explaining the purpose of the trip, asking for recommendations, and inviting your friend to meet. The tone is appropriately informal for a letter to a friend. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited. For instance, the purpose of the trip is mentioned briefly as 'business work' without further detail, and the invitation is a bit repetitive. To reach a higher band, try to expand on your ideas with more specific details—such as the nature of your business or specific dates—to make the letter feel more authentic and fully developed.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter is organized into paragraphs, which helps the reader follow your points. You use some cohesive devices like 'Firstly,' 'Additionally,' and 'Also' to link ideas. However, the flow is occasionally disrupted by awkward phrasing and punctuation errors, such as the sentence 'Most important one , we are getting together...'. The transition between ideas is sometimes mechanical rather than natural. To improve, focus on using a wider variety of linking words and ensure that your sentences flow smoothly into one another without relying on repetitive structures.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

Your vocabulary is adequate for the task, but it is quite basic and contains some errors in word choice and spelling. For example, you wrote 'memoriable memories' (redundant) and 'carram' (spelling). You also use 'i' instead of the capital 'I' throughout the text. While your meaning is generally clear, the range of vocabulary is limited, and there is a lack of precision. To improve, try to incorporate more descriptive adjectives and varied verbs to express your thoughts more naturally, and pay closer attention to spelling and standard capitalization rules.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

There are frequent grammatical errors throughout the letter, including missing articles ('come to city'), incorrect verb forms ('what your city have'), and punctuation issues (incorrect spacing before commas). You rely mostly on simple sentence structures, and your attempts at complex sentences often contain errors, such as 'please suggest me that what your city have'. While these errors do not completely prevent communication, they are noticeable and occur frequently. You should focus on mastering basic sentence construction, subject-verb agreement, and the correct use of articles to improve your accuracy.

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

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