Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-10-14

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 6.5)

Dear Sidhu,

I hope you're doing well.

It's been a long time since we last spoke. Guess what happened recently.

I took vacations for 3 month from my job and decided to spend time with my family. Our plan was to take a house near a lake to enjoy the summers there. So near the riverside in Windsor, I rented a three bed room house with balcony facing the river. It is a very enjoyable view watching the seagulls, boats and ships in water and alots of greenery. The surrounding helps us relax our mind and body.

Additionally, it is a family trip. So in the backyard there are swings for children and rest of my family members have fun playing tennis and soccer in their leisure time. Also, the flowers and plants in the garden are very attracting. Summers are going great with swimming pool facility and family fun.

Why don't you come over to visit us? It would be great if you join us the coming weekend.

I really miss you.

Hope to see you soon.

With love,

Aman

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.0

You address all three points clearly: you describe the rented home and its setting, explain how your family spends time there, and invite Sidhu to visit. Details such as the three-bedroom house, balcony, garden, swings and swimming-pool facility make the letter relevant and give your friend a sense of the stay. The invitation to join you “the coming weekend” is direct and appropriate. The ideas are generally extended, although some are presented as broad statements—for example, “Summers are going great with swimming pool facility and family fun”—rather than explaining a particular activity or experience. A little more specific detail about your daily routine would make the account more fully developed while retaining its friendly purpose.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The letter has a clear overall progression: you open with personal news, describe the location and house, move on to family activities, and finish with an invitation and warm closing. Paragraphing helps distinguish these stages, and linking expressions such as “Additionally” and “Also” make relationships between ideas clear. This meets the lower-band expectation of a coherent arrangement and shows some flexibility in connecting information. However, several ideas are crowded into the same paragraph, and the repeated additive links make the middle section feel somewhat list-like. For a stronger progression, group the house and scenery together, then describe activities in a separate paragraph, using a wider range of natural transitions and clearer references between sentences.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use enough vocabulary to communicate the main details, including “riverside,” “balcony,” “seagulls,” “backyard” and “leisure time.” These choices help make the setting and activities understandable. However, the range is limited in places, and several noticeable word-choice or collocation problems reduce naturalness: “took vacations for 3 month,” “alots of greenery,” “helps us relax our mind and body,” and “flowers and plants … are very attracting.” Some phrases also repeat general ideas such as “family fun” and “enjoyable.” Aim to learn common combinations as complete phrases and choose more precise descriptions. This would make the letter sound more fluent and idiomatic without requiring unusually advanced vocabulary.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and more developed sentence forms, including “Why don't you come over to visit us?” and the sentence describing the house and its balcony. The message remains clear, and errors rarely prevent the reader from understanding your meaning. Some grammatical inaccuracies persist, however. For example, “I took vacations for 3 month” has an incorrect plural form and tense choice, while “a three bed room house” and “the coming weekend” show problems with compound-noun form and article use. In “the surrounding helps us relax our mind and body,” the subject and possessive reference are not well controlled. Review verb tense, singular/plural agreement, articles and possessives, and check punctuation when combining several ideas in one sentence.

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

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