Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-04

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 6.0)

Dear sir,

I hope everything is well on your end. I wanted to write to you for making a request to reduce my working hours from 9 hours to 5 hours, preferably in the evening time. As you are aware I'm enrolled in a masters program and I'm not able to continue doing a full time job because its severely affecting my studies. Furthermore, while my studies are compromising, I'm also not able to give my full attention to my work. I constantly worry about my education.

Therefore, I deeply realized that it would be beneficial for both of us, if you reduce my working hours. Doing so will allow me more time to give more time to my studies. Consequently I'll stop worrying about it and again divert my attention to my office work. Moreover, after completing my masters I'll have more knowledge and your organization will be on the receiving end of its benefits.

I'm eagerly looking forward to your response. Thank you for time and consideration.

Sincerely,

Ali Khan

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response covers all parts of the prompt, successfully explaining why you want to reduce hours to study for a master's program, stating your preferred working hours in the evening, and describing how the employer will benefit from your completed degree. However, the development of these ideas is uneven. While the explanation for the reduction in hours is clear, the description of how your employer benefits is somewhat under-developed and general, relying on the notion that you will simply have more knowledge rather than detailing specific workplace advantages. To reach a higher level, all bullet points would need more extended and fully supported explanations that elaborate on how your professional growth directly impacts the company.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The letter maintains a coherent overall arrangement with a clear progression from stating the request to explaining the benefits and concluding politely. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct ideas, such as separating the main request and reasons from the employer benefits. However, cohesion at times feels mechanical or repetitive, particularly in how sentences are linked with basic conjunctions and transitional phrases like 'Furthermore' and 'Moreover'. Additionally, referencing is occasionally imprecise, such as using pronouns that make tracking ideas slightly less fluid than expected at higher bands. Greater variety and subtlety in cohesive devices would improve the overall flow.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

An adequate vocabulary range is employed to convey the message successfully, and you attempt some less common items such as 'severely affecting' and 'receiving end of its benefits'. However, there are noticeable limitations in lexical choice and phrasing, including slight awkwardness in collocations such as 'write to you for making a request' instead of 'write to request'. Spelling and word choice errors are present, like 'deeply realized' instead of 'strongly realized', but these do not impede communication. To achieve a higher score, a wider and more precise range of vocabulary and more natural collocations would be necessary.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

The response demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and subordinate structures reasonably well. There are some errors in grammar and punctuation, such as the missing article in 'master's program', an unnecessary comma before 'that', and minor capitalization slips like 'sir'. Despite these issues, the mix of structures shows good control, and the errors rarely impede communication and do not cause difficulty for the reader. To move up to the next band, you would need to produce a higher proportion of error-free sentences while maintaining a wide variety of complex structures.

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.