Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-16

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You rode in a taxi yesterday. When you got home, you realized you had left your bag in the taxi.

Write a letter to the manager of the taxi company. In your letter
• explain how you lost your bag.
• describe your bag.
• ask the manager to help you find it.

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Student answer (Band 4.0)

Dear sir,

I hope you well .My bag had lost.please help me for my lost bag.i inform you that my bag lost.i am drive on taxi my bags besides on driver of taxi.i am going to home and i am taxi ride on map.My concentrat on phone not my bag.So i am very worried becuase my lost bag.My important dacuments , cradit card and cash in my bag.My id card in my bag.So inform you that please my help to find my bag.i am remember of diver phone number because in my phone in save to call her to taxi .So please to search to car number and my bag lost to find out.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.0

The response fails to meet the minimum word count requirement of 150 words, coming in at only 114 words, which negatively impacts task achievement. However, the letter does attempt to cover the required bullet points: it mentions that a bag was lost in a taxi, briefly describes its contents such as important documents and credit cards, and asks the manager for help. Nevertheless, the ideas are underdeveloped and lack clarity due to severe language limitations. The tone is inappropriate for a formal letter to a manager, and the overall purpose is obscured by broken sentences. Because the core requirements are only minimally addressed and the length penalty applies, the score reflects these limitations.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 3.5

The organization of the letter is extremely poor. The text lacks any proper paragraphing, presenting all ideas in a single, jumbled block of text. There is a complete lack of cohesive devices to guide the reader logically through the explanation. Sentences are disjointed, and referencing is faulty, as seen in expressions like "My bag had lost. please help me for my lost bag. i inform you that my bag lost." The progression of ideas is erratic, jumping between the loss, the contents, and the driver's phone number without clear links. Consequently, the information is not arranged coherently, making it very difficult for the reader to follow the narrative.

Lexical Resource — Band 4.0

The vocabulary used is extremely basic, repetitive, and inadequate for an IELTS task. The writer relies on simple, high-frequency words and makes frequent word choice errors, such as "My bag had lost" instead of "I lost my bag" and "i am drive on taxi" instead of "I took a taxi." Spelling and morphological errors are persistent throughout the text, including "dacuments" instead of "documents" and "cradit" instead of "credit." The limited and inaccurate vocabulary range severely strains the reader's understanding and falls well below the standard required for higher bands.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 3.5

Grammatical control is very weak throughout the response. There is a complete absence of complex sentence structures, and even basic sentence patterns are heavily flawed. Errors include missing verbs, incorrect auxiliary usage, and severe punctuation issues, such as "My concentrat on phone not my bag" and "i am remember of diver phone number because in my phone in save to call her to taxi." Capitalization and basic sentence boundaries are frequently ignored. These frequent, pervasive errors distort meaning and make the vast majority of sentences grammatically incorrect, restricting the score to a lower band level.

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

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