Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.0 · Barron's Writing · 2026-09-30

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You have a problem in your apartment that needs repairs.

Write a letter to the building manager. In your letter
• describe the problem.
• say what you think should be done about it.
• ask the building manager to visit your apartment to see the problem.

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear _________,

Student answer (Band 4.0)

Dear building manager

am facing difficulty about water leakage in my apartment bathroom in these days im trying to fix it but due to insufficent time and limited income am not able to improve this i send you some messages and pictures regarding leakage could you please fix this issue and can you will sen plumber so they will repair water problem i will extremely thankful if you will assist me to overcome this dilemma

your obident tenant

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 4.0

The student has attempted to cover all parts of the prompt by describing a water leakage problem in the bathroom, suggesting it should be fixed by a plumber, and asking the building manager to visit the apartment. However, the response falls severely short of the minimum length requirement of 150 words, containing only 78 words. Due to this significant under-length, the ideas remain very brief and lack the necessary development and extension expected for a General Training Task 1 letter. Furthermore, the tone is slightly informal and abrupt for a professional correspondence with a building manager. Consequently, the task is only partially addressed, which heavily impacts this criterion.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.0

The letter lacks proper paragraphing, written entirely as a single block of text with a run-on structure. There is an absence of logical paragraph breaks to separate the greeting, description of the problem, proposed solution, and call to action. Cohesive devices are minimal and basic, relying on simple sequencing like 'and' or 'then'. Reference words are unclear at times, making the progression of ideas disjointed and halting. While the underlying message can be understood, the overall arrangement fails to meet the standards for cohesive and well-organized correspondence.

Lexical Resource: Band 4.5

The vocabulary used is basic and repetitive, such as 'difficulty', 'problem', 'fix', and 'water'. There are noticeable word choice issues, such as 'insufficent time' and 'improve this', which do not accurately collocate in this context. The student attempts a few less common expressions like 'dilemma' and 'extremely thankful', but they are marred by spelling and usage errors. The overall lexical range is limited and minimally adequate for communicating the basic situation, though spelling errors such as 'insufficent' and 'obident' further restrict the score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.0

The grammatical range is extremely limited, consisting mostly of run-on simple and poorly constructed complex clauses linked together without proper punctuation or capitalization. There is a complete lack of punctuation throughout the body of the letter, creating massive run-on sentences such as 'am facing difficulty... to overcome this dilemma'. Frequent errors in verb forms, tense usage, and sentence boundaries are present, which causes strain for the reader and obscures meaning in places. Control over basic grammatical structures is weak.

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

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