Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Barron's Writing · 2026-10-06

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 John,

I hope you are doing well. I want to share something important with you regarding a valuable item was broken from you mistakenly. I know you are very careful about expensive products but I want to know how the screen was damaged of laptop.

The valuable possesion was laptop. It is very important for me because I recieved this laptop as present on my 18th birthday from my parents. Secondly, I saved not only my all documents in this laptop but also there are many presentations are saved related to my work. Without this laptop , it is very difficult for me to continue my work as eveything set up in the computer.

You are my best friend. I do not want beg money for repairing it but next time be careful about these items because they are more costly, and sometime more close to someone.

Best regards,

Raman

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The response addresses the main purpose of the letter, but some parts are partially covered or under-developed. For instance, the description of the broken item is quite basic, simply stating 'The valuable possesion was laptop', and lacks vivid detail about its physical state. Furthermore, the third bullet point regarding what you would like your friend to do is handled rather unclearly and awkwardly when you write, 'I do not want beg money for repairing it but next time be careful'. The tone shifts abruptly, and the specific request or proposed solution regarding the repair costs remains somewhat confused, preventing the response from achieving a higher level of development.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The letter maintains a coherent overall arrangement with a recognizable beginning, middle, and end, using standard friendly letter conventions such as the greeting and sign-off. Paragraphing is utilized to separate distinct points, such as describing the item and explaining its importance. However, cohesion is at times mechanical or somewhat faulty due to awkward referencing and transitional phrases. For example, the progression between sentences within the body paragraphs occasionally feels abrupt, such as moving from birthday presents to work documents without smooth logical bridges. Referencing pronouns like 'this' and 'it' is generally clear, but overall the flow lacks the flexibility seen at higher levels.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, though it is limited and basic overall. There are noticeable lexical errors and spelling mistakes throughout the text, such as 'possesion' instead of possession, 'recieved' instead of received, and 'eveything' instead of everything. Words and phrases are repeated, and attempts at less common vocabulary sometimes result in unnatural collocations, such as 'a valuable item was broken from you mistakenly' or 'more close to someone'. While these inaccuracies do not completely prevent the reader from understanding the general message, they cause some difficulty and point directly to a limited lexical range.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writing displays a limited range of sentence structures, relying primarily on simple sentences and basic coordination. When complex sentence forms are attempted, they frequently contain errors, such as in the passive construction 'a valuable item was broken from you mistakenly' or the missing preposition in 'how the screen was damaged of laptop'. There are frequent errors in verb forms, prepositions, and sentence boundaries, such as missing articles ('saved not only my all documents in this laptop') and awkward punctuation. These frequent grammatical errors require extra effort from the reader to parse the meaning.

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