Band 4.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-08-25

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You would like to reduce your working hours in order to study part time.

Write a letter to your boss. In your letter

• explain why you want to reduce your working hours
• say which hours you would like to work
• describe how your part-time studies would benefit your employer

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear ....................................,

Student answer (Band 4.0)

Dear Peter,

I'm writing this letter to inform you that I shifted to a novel community last week.

Actually, I got a new job as a senior supervisior at Intelcom Dragonfly company in Scarborough. I know you won't believe, everything happened quickly and could not get a time to get in touch with anyone.

Here, I rented a small apartment with my husband. It is a two bedroom apartment including living area, laundry, storage room and kitchen as well as washroom are fully furnished. Eventhough, car park and utilities such as electricity, water and wifi are also included in the rent. Moreover, a park, grocery stores, restraunts are just 5 minutes walk from here.

Well, why don't you join us this weekend for dinner with your husband? I would be vary happy if you could visit at my new home.

I can not wait to see you then.

With love,

Pravjot.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 2.0

The response is completely off-topic. The task instructions explicitly require you to write a letter to your boss requesting a reduction in working hours to study part-time. Instead, you have written a personal letter to a friend about moving to a new apartment and starting a new job. Because you have failed to address any of the bullet points (explaining the reduction in hours, specifying the schedule, or describing the benefits to the employer), the response fails to meet the requirements of the task entirely. To improve, you must carefully read the prompt and ensure your content directly answers the specific questions asked.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 4.0

While the letter is divided into paragraphs and uses basic cohesive devices like 'Actually', 'Moreover', and 'Well', the content does not follow a logical progression relevant to the task. The transition between the news of a new job and the description of the apartment is abrupt. The structure is that of a personal letter, which is coherent in its own context, but because the task was to write a formal request to an employer, the overall organisation is inappropriate for the required genre. Paragraphing is present, but the lack of relevance to the prompt makes the coherence ineffective for the intended purpose.

Lexical Resource — Band 4.5

The vocabulary is generally simple and repetitive. You use basic descriptive terms like 'small apartment', 'fully furnished', and 'grocery stores'. There are several spelling errors, such as 'supervisior' (supervisor), 'Eventhough' (Even though), 'restraunts' (restaurants), and 'vary' (very). While the vocabulary is sufficient to describe your living situation, it lacks the formal register required for a business letter to a boss. To reach a higher band, you should focus on accurate spelling and use more sophisticated vocabulary appropriate for a professional context, such as 'requesting', 'arrangements', or 'professional development'.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.5

The response contains a mix of simple and some complex sentence structures. However, there are frequent grammatical errors that affect the clarity of the writing. For example, 'I shifted to a novel community' is an unnatural collocation; 'could not get a time to get in touch' is awkward; and 'Eventhough, car park and utilities... are also included' is grammatically incorrect. There are also issues with punctuation and sentence fragments. While the meaning is generally understandable, the frequency of errors in basic sentence construction and word order prevents the writing from reaching a higher band score.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.