Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-18

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You live in a small apartment building. You are frequently bothered by noise from your upstairs neighbour's apartment.

Write a letter to your neighbour. In your letter
• describe the situation.
• explain why it is a problem for you.
• suggest a solution.

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear _________,

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear neighbours,

I hope you are doing well. I am writing this letter to complain about a loud music coming from your apartment every day as it causing a significant disturbance.

As I am a student and I need a quite time to study and relax. However, when I try to study It is so difficult me to concentrate on my studies. Therefore, I feel so disturb and anxious at the same time and this causing me mentaly disturbed. Also, it is so hard for me to get up early in the morning.

I kindly request to you to lower the volume or if possible please use headphones so that it could be benifited to us. I hope you would understand me and try to reduce the volume. I would be really appreciate your time and response. Thank you.

Yours faithfully,

Ramandeep kaur

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The letter covers all three bullet points from the prompt: it describes the situation ("loud music coming from your apartment every day"), explains why it is a problem ("difficult me to concentrate on my studies"), and suggests a solution ("lower the volume or if possible please use headphones"). The tone is appropriately semi-formal for a neighbourly dispute, and the purpose of the letter is clear. However, the response is affected by the word count requirement, falling slightly short of the 150-word minimum at 143 words. Consequently, the ideas are slightly under-developed due to this length limitation, which prevents the response from reaching a higher band. Overall, all task requirements are addressed, but with limited elaboration.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter is organised into clear paragraphs that separate the greeting, the description and problem, the proposed solution, and the sign-off. Cohesive devices are used to link ideas, such as "However", "Therefore", and "Also". However, referencing and cohesion are sometimes faulty or mechanical, as seen in the phrasing "this causing me mentaly disturbed" where the pronoun reference is slightly unclear. Paragraphing is used sufficiently to structure the message, ensuring an overall coherent arrangement that makes the communication clear to the reader, aligning well with the descriptors for Band 6.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, with attempts at functional phrases like "significant disturbance" and "kindly request". However, there are noticeable word choice and spelling errors throughout the text, such as writing "quite time" instead of "quiet time", "so disturb" instead of "so disturbed", and "benifited" instead of "beneficial" or "benefit". There are also awkward collocations like "this causing me mentaly disturbed". While these errors do not impede communication, they reflect a limited and occasionally inaccurate range of vocabulary, placing the response firmly at Band 5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, incorporating clauses with "so that" and relative pronouns. However, there are frequent grammatical errors that detract from accuracy, such as "a loud music coming" (article and participle error), "difficult me to concentrate" (missing preposition), and "I would be really appreciate" (modal verb followed by an adjective/verb mix). Punctuation is generally acceptable, but sentence structures often contain errors that cause some difficulty for the reader. These frequent structural inaccuracies cap the grammar score at Band 5.

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

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