Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-17

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You live in a small apartment building with a parking lot in back, and you often cannot find an empty parking space when you get home from work.

Write a letter to your landlord. In your letter
• describe the situation.
• explain why it bothers you.
• suggest something the landlord could do to solve the problem.

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear ____

Student answer (Band 6.5)

Dear Jamie,

I hope you are doing well. My name is Nav, living in unit 301 in your apartment building. I am writing this letter regarding my struggle while looking for an empty parking space after I get home from work.

I live here and pay for the parking services. Unfortunately most of the time, I faced challenges to find a vacant spot to park my vehicle. As you are also aware about the city laws, parking car on the side road is strictly prohibited without notice. Every night, I have to come out to park my car in our apartment building's parking spot because at that time, no car is parked by non-residental.

In the end, I would like to suggest please remove non-residental cars from our building and only allow residental parking with respective reserved spots. I strongly believe if you will apply this rule on every single person then many people who struggle like me can park their cars stress-free.

I hope you will try to apply such effective rules and regulations to avoid any situation like this.

Hoping to hear from you soon.

Yours Faithfully,

Nav

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 7.0

The response successfully addresses all parts of the letter prompt. You clearly described the situation in your opening by stating that you struggle to find an empty parking space after returning from work. You explained why it bothers you by noting that you pay for parking services, face challenges daily, and are restricted by city laws from parking on the side road. Furthermore, you provided a clear suggestion for the landlord to remove non-resident cars and assign reserved spots. The tone is appropriate for a semi-formal letter to a landlord. Although some ideas could be extended further, all bullet points are well covered, and the purpose of the letter is achieved effectively. You have fulfilled all the necessary functional requirements of a General Training Task 1 response.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The letter is logically organised with a clear beginning, middle, and end. You use appropriate paragraphing to separate your greeting, the description of the problem, your explanation and suggestion, and your sign-off. Cohesive devices such as 'Unfortunately', 'Every night', and 'In the end' are used to guide the reader through the text, although some transitions feel a bit mechanical. Referencing is mostly clear, such as 'this rule' referring to the proposed parking policy. Overall progression is easy to follow, aligning well with the expectations for a Band 6.5 or 7 letter.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms such as 'prohibited', 'vacant spot', and 'regulations'. However, there are some minor lexical and collocation errors, such as 'parking car on the side road' (instead of 'parking cars on the side road') and 'non-residental' instead of 'non-residential'. Despite these occasional inaccuracies, your vocabulary is sufficient to convey your message clearly without impeding communication. To reach a higher band, you would need to incorporate a wider range of less common lexical items with more precise control over collocations.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

You attempt a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as conditional structures ('I strongly believe if you will apply this rule...'). However, there are noticeable grammatical errors throughout the text, including tense and preposition slips like 'struggle while looking' instead of 'struggle when looking', 'aware about' instead of 'aware of', and the incorrect use of the future tense in the conditional clause ('if you will apply'). Punctuation and sentence boundaries are generally controlled, and these errors rarely impede overall communication. A higher score would require greater accuracy in complex structures.

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

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