Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-05

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 6.5)

Dear Trevor,

I hope you are doing well. I am writing this letter to inform you about my upcoming university courses, requesting you to reasses my hours of work per week as I will have a requirement of time to focus on my academics.

I am having my university courses taking place after two weeks demanding me to dedicate a particular number of hours for concentration on studies. It was my determined discipline and hardwork that I cleared the entrance test for this university to secure an admission and I do not want to treat this opportunity lightly. I have a dream to successfully pass the final year examinations with flying colors for which clear concepts of the courses is a sine qua non.

I would like to request you if you can evaluate my schedule and remove my tuesday and thursday shifts from the schedule. I would be working rest all the days and number of hours as I am currently.

Not only my successfull academics will boost my skills and knowledge, but also it will benifit you as my qualifications would be the highest in the workplace compared to other employees which you can leverage by assigning a plethora of responsibilites to me in future.

I would really appreciate if you can process my request as soon as possible. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Regards,

Utsav

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response successfully covers all the bullet points required by the prompt, earning a solid rating. You clearly explain why you want to reduce your working hours due to upcoming university courses, state the specific hours you wish to be excused from (Tuesday and Thursday shifts), and describe how your part-time studies will benefit your employer by boosting your qualifications and enabling you to take on more responsibilities. The tone is appropriately formal and professional for a letter to a boss. However, some ideas are slightly under-developed rather than fully extended, such as the exact nature of the workplace benefits. To reach the next level, you could expand more thoroughly on how your specific studies directly translate into practical advantages for the company's daily operations.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The letter maintains a coherent overall arrangement with a logical progression of ideas from the initial greeting and purpose, through the specific requests, to the professional closing. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate distinct points, such as your reasons for studying, your scheduling requests, and the employer benefits. Cohesive devices are generally present, though some connections feel slightly mechanical or repetitive, such as the transition phrases. Referencing is mostly clear, though occasional minor clunkiness in linking sentences prevents the flow from being entirely seamless. To achieve a higher standard, you should aim for more natural, varied cohesive devices and smoother transitions between paragraphs so that the logical relationships between your ideas are even more apparent.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.5

Your vocabulary range is adequate for the task, successfully communicating your message with some attempts at less common phrasing, such as 'sine qua non', 'plethora of responsibilites', and 'with flying colors'. However, there are some noticeable issues with word choice, collocation, and minor spelling errors, such as 'reasses' instead of 'reassess', 'benifit' instead of 'benefit', and 'successfull' instead of 'successful'. Additionally, phrases like 'I am having my university courses taking place' sound somewhat unnatural compared to standard business or academic phrasing. To move higher, you need to use a wider range of precise lexical items more accurately and eliminate spelling mistakes while ensuring natural collocations throughout your writing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, incorporating relative clauses and conditional structures into your letter. There are some errors in grammar and punctuation, but they rarely impede communication. For example, sentences like 'I would like to request you if you can evaluate my schedule' contain awkward phrasing, and 'I would be working rest all the days and number of hours as I am currently' lacks necessary articles and prepositions ('the rest of all the days'). Punctuation and verb tense consistency also occasionally slip, such as in 'It was my determined discipline and hardwork that I cleared the entrance test'. To reach a higher band, you need to increase your proportion of error-free sentences and exercise better control over complex grammatical patterns and prepositional usage.

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

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