Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-08-05

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You have a bicycle that you are no longer using. You would like to sell it to a friend.

Write a letter to your friend. In your letter
• explain why you are no longer using your bicycle.
• describe your bicycle.
• explain why you think your friend would like to have it.

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear _________,

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear Karan,

I hope you are doing great, i just wanna tell you that i wanna sell my old bicycle because i just upgrate it with new one and i am not using this one anymore.

It's body colour is basically red and black. It has new seat cover, chain and tyers as well. Recently i also install lights in both tyers which make looks amazing in the night because its multi colour. It drive very smoothly. There is no issues at all.

I think it is great deal for you because i know you love cycling and its your favrouite cycle and its also helfull for you to go any short distance with cycle instead of bike. It is pocket friendly as well for u because no gas require for this and u save your money as well by this. If your intreasted to buy this just let me know.

Your friend karan,

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The letter covers all three bullet points required by the prompt: explaining why you are no longer using the bike, describing its features, and explaining why your friend would benefit from it. The tone is appropriate for a letter to a friend. However, the development of ideas is somewhat basic. For instance, the description of the bicycle could be more detailed to make it more persuasive, and the explanation of why your friend would like it is a bit repetitive. To reach a higher band, ensure that each point is fully extended with more descriptive language and clearer reasoning.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter is organized into logical paragraphs, which helps the reader follow the progression of ideas. However, the use of cohesive devices is quite limited and sometimes mechanical. For example, the transition between the description of the bike and the benefits for the friend is abrupt. There is a reliance on simple conjunctions like 'and' or 'because'. To improve, try using a wider variety of linking words and phrases to connect sentences and ideas more fluidly, such as 'Furthermore', 'Consequently', or 'In addition to this'.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task but remains quite simple and repetitive. You use basic terms like 'great', 'new', and 'amazing'. There are also some spelling errors, such as 'tyers' (tires), 'intreasted' (interested), and 'helfull' (helpful). Additionally, the phrase 'pocket friendly' is used correctly, but the overall range is limited. To achieve a higher score, focus on using more precise adjectives and nouns to describe the bicycle and avoid informal abbreviations like 'wanna' or 'u', which are not appropriate even in a friendly letter for an IELTS exam.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The response contains a mix of simple and some complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors throughout. Issues include subject-verb agreement ('It drive very smoothly'), incorrect verb tenses ('i also install'), and punctuation errors (missing commas and improper capitalization of 'i'). The misuse of 'its' versus 'it's' is also consistent. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to lower the score. Focusing on basic sentence construction and proofreading for common errors like subject-verb agreement will significantly improve your accuracy.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.