Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-10-05

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 5.5)

Dear Shyam,

I hope you enjoyed your stay at my home while i am away, and i would like to thank you for taking care of my plants in my absence.

I am writing this letter to you that as i have noticed the broken glass vase which was kept on the dining table. i wanted to ask you if by any chance you have any information about how the vase was broken it is one of the last few items i have that belonged to my late granmother.

It had significant emotinal value for me. since financial value can recover the loss of this possesssion, i would like you to be honest with and tell me the cause of this pracious and antique flower pot was broken.

I will be waiting for your respoce on this at the earliast, thank you for keeping the good care of my house while i was away. I appriciate this

regards

Jass

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response successfully covers all three bullet points required in the task instructions. You describe the broken possession as a glass vase on the dining table, explain that it belonged to your late grandmother and held significant emotional value, and state what you would like your friend to do by asking him to be honest about how it happened. However, the development of these ideas is limited and somewhat repetitive, as seen when you mention the emotional value and the request for honesty across multiple sentences without expanding further into details. To reach a higher band, the explanation of the vase's importance and the request regarding the incident should be more fully extended and explored with greater clarity.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The letter maintains an overall coherent arrangement and follows a recognizable format for a personal correspondence, starting with an appropriate greeting and closing. There is some basic organization with distinct paragraph blocks used to separate your opening thanks, the description of the incident, the emotional context and request, and the closing remarks. However, progression is somewhat mechanical and the connection between sentences can feel disjointed due to awkward transitions and run-on structures, such as in the second paragraph where multiple thoughts are linked without clear cohesive devices. Referencing is also occasionally unclear, which prevents the flow of ideas from being fully smooth and logical throughout.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully incorporating familiar functional terms and attempting some less common expressions like 'significant emotional value', 'possesssion', and 'antique flower pot'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word choice errors throughout the text, including 'granmother' instead of grandmother, 'emotinal' instead of emotional, 'pracious' instead of precious, and 'respoce' at the earliast instead of response at the earliest. Additionally, the phrase 'keep the good care of my house' contains an incorrect article usage and unnatural collocation. These lexical inaccuracies do not completely impede communication, but they restrict the precision and flexibility of your expression.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writing relies on a limited range of structures, featuring a mix of simple sentences and faulty attempts at complex clauses. There are frequent grammatical errors, particularly with verb tense consistency, such as switching incorrectly between past and present in 'while i am away' when describing a past trip. Punctuation and capitalization are weak throughout the text, notably with lowercase 'i' used consistently for the personal pronoun and missing sentence boundary punctuation, creating run-on constructions like 'how the vase was broken it is one of the last'. Preposition usage and clause patterns also contain errors, such as 'honest with' missing an object pronoun. These frequent errors cause some difficulty for the reader and reflect a need for stricter control over basic sentence mechanics.

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