Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-09

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 Mr. Noor,

I am writing this letter to request you to reduce my working hours in order to study part-time for my future goals. I want to reduce my work hours from full-time 40 hours to 30 hours a week to pursue my studies this coming winter.

I am requesting that you can schedule me for morning working hours from Tuesday to Saturday, 7 AM to 3 PM, rather than evening and night shifts, so I can attend my evening sessions at the institution. I am very grateful if you could make this change in my schedule, it will be helpful for me to study well.

Moreover, I am going to pursue my course in mobile automation which will also be helpful for my job in future. This course will be helpful to our company, and I can provide valuable skills on my job as well.

Kindly consider my request. I am looking forward to your answer.

Yours sincerely,

Kesar Singh

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response6.5
Coherence and Cohesion6.5
Lexical Resource6.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy6.0
Overall6.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The letter addresses all three required points: you explain that you want to study for future goals, specify a 30-hour week and preferred Tuesday-to-Saturday morning schedule, and describe how mobile automation could benefit your work and the company. The request is clear and appropriately polite. The employer benefit, however, is only briefly stated in “provide valuable skills on my job”; a specific example of how the course could improve your work or support the company would develop this point more fully. The reason for studying is also quite general. The response covers the task well overall, while some ideas remain less developed than others.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The letter follows a sensible progression: it introduces the request, gives the proposed schedule, explains the course’s potential benefit, and closes politely. Paragraphing helps distinguish these points, and expressions such as “Moreover” make the shift to the employer benefit clear. Some connections are less smooth, however. The sentence beginning “I am very grateful” joins the request and its result with a comma, making the relationship between the ideas unclear. The repeated phrase “This course will be helpful” also makes the middle paragraph feel less developed. Use clearer sentence boundaries and vary the links between ideas to make the progression more natural and flexible.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

Your vocabulary is adequate for a workplace request, and phrases such as “reduce my working hours,” “evening sessions,” and “valuable skills” communicate the main ideas clearly. You also use an appropriate polite register through “Kindly consider my request.” However, some wording is repetitive or imprecise: “helpful” appears several times, and “for my future goals” does not explain the purpose as naturally as a more specific phrase would. “Mobile automation” is relevant, but you could clarify the field or the skills involved. Greater variety in describing the course’s value and more precise collocations would make the letter sound more fluent and professional.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and more complex forms, including the purpose clause “in order to study” and the conditional request “if you could make this change.” Most sentences are understandable, but some grammatical and punctuation errors remain. In “I am requesting that you can schedule me,” the clause after “requesting” is not formed naturally; use “I would like to request that you schedule me.” The sentence “I am very grateful if you could make this change in my schedule, it will be helpful…” contains a comma splice and an awkward conditional construction. Separating the ideas and using a consistent conditional form would improve accuracy. Continue varying sentence structures while checking clause boundaries and verb patterns.

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

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