Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-10-13

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 5.0)

Dear manger,

I am writing regarding my last ride in your taxi .On 20 october 2025 at 10:30 p:m i took a taxi from your company.

To begin with, it is a serious issue hope you will pay the needed attention to it. Moreover, i forget my bag in your vehical ,it was blue in colour with skybag sign on it. Their is my apple macbook in it alongwith my identity card. My stuff is really expensive for me.I will be really greatfully if you can check the camera footage or ask the driver about.

I will be your grateful and will wait for your reply at your earliest convience.

your sincerely,

kamal

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response5.0
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.0

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

You cover the main purpose of the letter by explaining that you left a bag in the taxi, describing it as blue with a Skybag logo, and asking the company to check footage or contact the driver. However, the request is brief, and the circumstances of the loss are not fully explained beyond the date and time of the ride. The contents of the bag are useful details, but you could also identify the journey’s starting point or destination and ask how the company will contact you if it is found. The response is also 37 words below the required minimum, so the task is only partially developed. Add relevant details to address each bullet more fully.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The letter follows a generally understandable order: you introduce the ride, describe the missing bag and its contents, then request help and close. This gives the reader a basic sense of the purpose. However, the body is compressed into one paragraph, and transitions such as “To begin with” and “Moreover” do not clearly show the relationship between the ideas. The opening sentence about the issue being serious also interrupts the explanation of how the bag was left behind. Use separate paragraphs for the journey and loss, the bag’s description, and your request; connect these details with straightforward, accurate linking phrases to make the progression clearer.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use some relevant vocabulary for the situation, including “taxi,” “camera footage,” “driver,” “identity card,” and “MacBook,” so the reader can understand the basic message. However, the range is limited, and several word-choice, spelling, and form errors make the letter less natural: “manger,” “vehical,” “greatfully,” and “convience.” Phrases such as “my stuff is really expensive for me” are vague and informal for a letter to a company manager. Choose more precise expressions, for example, “valuable belongings” or “the items are important to me,” and use conventional terms such as “logo” to describe the mark on the bag. Proofreading spelling and collocations would improve clarity and tone.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The response communicates its basic meaning, but it relies mainly on short, simple statements and has frequent errors in verb forms, sentence construction, and punctuation. For example, “i forget my bag” should use a past-tense form, while “I will be really greatfully if you can check” does not form a correct conditional sentence. The opening also runs together after “taxi” without appropriate spacing or sentence punctuation, and “There is my apple macbook in it” has an inaccurate sentence structure. These errors sometimes make the reader pause to interpret the message. Practise accurate past-tense narration and polite request structures, then combine related details into a few controlled complex sentences.

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