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 Alex,
Hope you are doing well, I am writing a letter to inform you that I am joining a French course as a part time study and would like to reduce some working hours from my job.
I am interested in learning multi- language which is useful for my career growth and gives progress in my current position. Moreover, the French course also helps in my immigration process. That's the main reason I want to reduce my working hours and I can easily concentrate on my studies.
I personally think that I am able to work during night time from 11 pm to 7 am three days a week. Furthermore, I believe that after my shift I can rest in the morning and in the evening I can start practicing my non native language.
Apart from this, my part time study is also beneficial for our company in various ways. There are a number of clients who only speak French, as a customer service it is hard to understand and clarify their doubts. After learning I can confidently help them.
I hope you understand my situation and help in reducing some hours.
Yours Sincerely
Sandeep
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 7.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 6.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 6.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 6.0 |
| Overall | 6.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.0
You successfully address all parts of the prompt, earning a solid score. You clearly explain why you want to reduce your working hours due to a French course and immigration goals, specify your preferred night shifts, and describe how your new language skills will benefit the employer by assisting French-speaking clients. The position is clear throughout the letter. While all required bullet points are covered, some ideas lean slightly towards over-generalisation or could be extended with more specific detail, placing the response comfortably within the expectations for this level. Your tone remains appropriately professional and polite for a letter to a boss.
Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5
Your letter demonstrates a coherent overall arrangement with a clear logical organisation. You use standard paragraphing effectively to separate your introduction, reasons for studying, proposed working hours, company benefits, and concluding remarks. Cohesive devices such as 'Moreover', 'Furthermore', and 'Apart from this' are present and help guide the reader through your arguments. However, cohesion occasionally feels slightly mechanical rather than entirely natural and flowing. To reach the next level, you could aim for smoother transitions between sentences and ensure referencing remains transparent throughout, bridging the gap between a clear logical structure and fully flexible cohesion.
Lexical Resource: Band 6.0
You use an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items such as 'immigration process' and 'customer service'. There are some word choice and collocation slips, such as 'joining a French course as a part time study' instead of 'enrolling in a part-time French course', and 'learning multi- language' instead of 'learning multiple languages'. Spelling and word choice errors are present, for instance writing 'non native' without a hyphen, but these do not impede communication. To achieve a higher score, you should demonstrate greater precision in word choice, a wider variety of natural collocations, and fewer stylistic inaccuracies.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0
You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilising structures such as relative clauses and conditional ideas. There are some errors in grammar and punctuation, such as comma splices ('Hope you are doing well, I am writing...') and missing articles or prepositions ('reduce some working hours from my job' instead of 'reduce my working hours'). Additionally, phrasing like 'help in reducing some hours' lacks a direct object or smooth prepositional phrasing. However, these errors rarely impede communication, and the meaning remains clear throughout. To move further up the scale, you need to produce a higher proportion of error-free sentences while maintaining control over complex grammatical patterns.
See this exact question answered at other band scores. The same prompt compared across bands.
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