Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-08-10

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You let a friend stay at your apartment while you were away on a trip. When you returned home, you discovered that a valuable possession was broken.

Write a letter to your friend. In your letter
• describe the broken possession.
• explain why it is important to you.
• explain what you would like your friend to do.

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear _________,

Student answer (Band 6.5)

Dear anjali,

I hope everything is going great with you, It's been a while since we last caught up. I have been meaning to write to you. I am writing this letter regarding a last week when you stayed in my apartment for a week and I found my DSLR camera broken.

I came back home last night from my Toronto Island trip with my girlfriend and we were extremely tired. So, we went directly to bed but in morning when we were in the leaving room, I noticed my camera which lens was cracked from the front side. Honestly, I was so upset about it.

However, it was so close to me because my father gifted me on last birthday when I went to India. Camera it self is so expensive and it literally connected with me emotionally as well. I believe that it just going to cost around 500$-700 $ for new lens of Sony alpha A7cii.

Anyway, I'd better wrap this up now. Please, write back and let me know if it happed by you or it was an accident. I would really appreciate if you could manage to replace that lens as I'm going with very tight budget after my trip expenses.

Take care and thank you for understanding.

Best wishes,

ASHU

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 7.0

You have addressed all three bullet points of the task: describing the broken item, explaining its significance, and requesting a resolution. The tone is appropriate for a letter to a friend, maintaining a personal and communicative style throughout. The ideas are relevant and clearly presented. To reach a higher band, you could provide more specific detail about the nature of the damage or the emotional connection to the camera to further develop your ideas. However, the response is well-focused and fulfills the requirements of the prompt effectively.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The letter is logically organized into clear paragraphs, each serving a distinct purpose. You use some cohesive devices such as 'However', 'Anyway', and 'So', which help the flow of ideas. However, some transitions feel slightly mechanical or abrupt. For instance, the jump between the description of the camera and the request for replacement could be smoother. Additionally, the referencing is occasionally slightly unclear, such as in the phrase 'if it happed by you', which requires the reader to infer the meaning. Overall, the progression is clear and the paragraphing is appropriate.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, using terms like 'valuable possession', 'emotionally', and 'tight budget'. There are some minor errors in word choice and collocation, such as 'leaving room' instead of 'living room' and 'happed by you' instead of 'happened because of you'. While you attempt to use more specific vocabulary, some phrasing is slightly unnatural. The vocabulary is sufficient to convey your message clearly, but increasing your use of more precise collocations would improve the quality of your writing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are several grammatical errors, such as 'my camera which lens was cracked' (should be 'the lens of my camera was cracked') and 'it just going to cost' (missing auxiliary verb). Punctuation is generally functional, though there are some comma splices, such as 'I hope everything is going great with you, It's been a while'. While these errors are noticeable, they do not impede the overall communication of your message. Increasing your control over complex sentence structures and subject-verb agreement will help you achieve a higher score.

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

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