Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-14

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You have rented a house by a lake for the summer.

Write a letter to a friend. In your letter
• describe the house.
• describe how you are spending your time there.
• invite your friend to come and visit.

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear ____

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear Harman,

I hope this letter finds you well.

I am writing this to you because i want to invite you to my house which i rented recently by the Banff lake which is located in Alberta my house number is 107 it is in the middle of lake there is a boat with the boat driver in it we just have to pay 20 $ for his service charge and he will ride us , and i will be happy if you would come thereto see me.

The house is beautiful it is right behind the lake as well as this is a huge house with total five bedrooms and 5 bathrooms as well as one huge basement and one kitchen i am spending time in this house with my family members and it will be fun if you also willing to join us,

We planned to swim in the lake as well as we are going to do fishing because there are several fishes in this lake after that we will cook that fishes in Barbecue that will be our dinner later that night this spot will be cold enough to do the born fire so we are also going to do that around the born fire we play music as well as we play some games for entertaining ourselves.

I hope to see you very soon.

I am hoping that you are willing to come and spend some good time with all of us.

Yours lovingly,

Lovely

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response successfully covers all three bullet points required by the task prompt. You have provided a description of the house located by Banff lake, explained how you are spending your time there with family activities such as swimming and fishing, and clearly invited your friend Harman to visit. However, some parts of the descriptions and ideas could be further extended and developed. For instance, the details about the boat ride and the house features are somewhat brief and run together in long, continuous sentences without full elaboration. Despite this, all required functions of a general training letter are present, and the tone is appropriately informal and friendly throughout, meeting the general criteria for a Band 6.0 performance.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The letter maintains a generally coherent overall arrangement, but paragraphing and cohesion require improvement. The response is divided into a few large blocks of text, and the third paragraph is an extremely long, run-on sentence containing multiple ideas (swimming, fishing, barbecuing, and a bonfire) joined mostly by conjunctions like 'as well as' and 'after that'. There is a lack of effective punctuation and clear transitions between distinct activities. Pronoun referencing is occasionally unclear, such as 'that fishes in Barbecue'. While the opening and closing salutations correctly frame the letter, the lack of structured sentences and paragraphing impacts the overall flow, positioning this at a Band 5.5.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

Your vocabulary is adequate for the task, allowing you to communicate your message effectively. You attempt some less common lexical items related to the scenario, such as 'service charge', 'barbecue', and 'bonfire' (spelled 'born fire'). However, there are noticeable word choice and collocation issues, including 'ride us' instead of 'take us for a ride', 'cooked that fishes' instead of 'cooked the fish', and spelling errors like 'born fire' for 'bonfire'. Additionally, vocabulary is repetitive in places, relying heavily on basic descriptors like 'huge' and 'house'. These inaccuracies and limited lexical range point firmly to a Band 5.5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

You demonstrate an attempt to use a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but your grammar and punctuation are severely disrupted by run-on sentences and a lack of proper terminal punctuation (periods and capital letters). Sentences like 'I am writing this to you because i want to invite you to my house which i rented recently by the Banff lake which is located in Alberta my house number is 107 it is in the middle of lake...' string multiple clauses together without commas or full stops. There are also capitalization errors (e.g., lowercase 'i') and grammatical slips ('you also willing to join us' instead of 'you are also willing'). Because these frequent errors in punctuation and sentence boundaries can cause difficulty for the reader, a Band 5.0 is appropriate.

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

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