Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-20

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 6.0)

Dear Sir,

I am writing to express my concern about the laptop bag I left in one of your taxis yesterday.

Yesterday, I booked a taxi through your online website, and my order ID is [redacted phone]. I put my bag under the car seat. After I got home, I realized one bag was missing. As I had too many belongings with me, I forgot to take off the laptop bag.

It is a black rectangular bag and is made up of leather material. Fortunately, there is no laptop in the bag, but have some important documents of work. I have already tried to ask in the "Lost and Found Department", but they did not find anything like this bag.

It would be appreciated if you could find that bag as soon as possible.

Kind regards,

James

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The student has attempted all parts of the prompt, successfully explaining how the bag was lost, describing its appearance, and asking the manager for help. The tone is mostly appropriate for a formal letter to a manager, although it opens with 'Dear Sir' rather than 'Dear Sir or Madam' as instructed. Ideas are relevant, but some bullet points are slightly brief, such as the request for help which is covered in a single sentence: 'It would be appreciated if you could find that bag as soon as possible.' Furthermore, the response falls short of the 150-word minimum, containing only 136 words. Because the length requirement was not met, this penalises the task achievement score accordingly.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter maintains a coherent overall arrangement and follows a logical structure with a clear beginning, body, and sign-off. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate the introduction, the context of the loss, the description and contents of the bag, and the concluding request. However, cohesive devices are somewhat basic. For example, the transition between sentences feels mechanical at times, as seen in the sequence 'After I got home... As I had too many belongings...'. Referencing is generally clear, but the progression of ideas could be smoother and better linked to achieve a higher band.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, successfully conveying the necessary details about the incident. The student uses some appropriate everyday vocabulary such as 'belongings', 'rectangular', and 'documents'. However, there are some unnatural word choices and phrasing, such as 'made up of leather material' (better expressed as 'made of leather') and 'ask in the Lost and Found Department' (where 'inquire at' would be more natural). There are also minor lexical errors like 'but have some important documents' missing a subject. The range is sufficient for communication but lacks flexibility and less common lexical items.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

The student demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as 'After I got home, I realized one bag was missing' and 'It would be appreciated if you could find that bag...'. Control of basic grammar is generally sound, but there are several noticeable errors. For instance, 'is made up of leather material' is slightly awkward, and the sentence 'Fortunately, there is no laptop in the bag, but have some important documents of work' suffers from a missing subject ('it has' or 'there are'). Despite these errors, meaning is rarely impeded, and punctuation is generally handled adequately throughout the short text.

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

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