Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-09-14

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You are a member of an International Students' club. The club is organising an event to celebrate popular food from around the world.

Write a letter to the event organiser, Luis. In your letter

• offer to make a popular dish from your country
• describe what this dish is
• explain why it should be included in the event

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Luis,

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear Luis,

I hope you are doing well. I am writting to express my wish to add an Indian dish in the upcoming event at our college to celebrate international food that you are going to orgnise next week.

As Indian is multicultural contry and each culture has it's own food and cusines, I am thinkinh we should add rice puddi in the event as it is the dish which people prefer to eat from all the areas of my country and is is fomous amont the other counties of the world also.

It is a simple dish made with rice, milk and some suger but we can add flavours according to our taste. This dish usually cook by Indians on every celebration and on each festival. People serve it in religious temples also.

There are thousands of other dishes those we can add but I would ssuggest onlt this one because it is simple to cook, has number of flavours and for the celebration, it would be the perfect choice. I hope you will think about it and give me a positive response.

Yours sincerely,

Harpreet Kaur

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response successfully covers all the bullet points outlined in the prompt. The writer offers to make an Indian dish for the upcoming event, introduces 'rice pudding' as the specific food item, and explains why it should be included, citing its cultural significance and simplicity. The tone is appropriate for a semi-formal letter to a club organizer named Luis, and the purpose of the communication is clear throughout. Although the ideas are somewhat straightforward and contain minor spelling and grammatical inconsistencies, all parts of the task are adequately addressed. Therefore, the response fulfills the requirements for Band 6.0 under this criterion.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter exhibits a coherent overall arrangement with a clear beginning and ending, such as the standard salutation 'Dear Luis,' and sign-off. Paragraphing is used appropriately to separate different points, moving logically from the initial proposal to the description of the dish and finally to the justification. However, cohesion at the sentence level is occasionally faulty or mechanical, with some repetitive referencing and run-on structures, such as using 'and is is fomous' or 'because it is simple to cook, has number of flavours and for the celebration'. These minor cohesive lapses place the response firmly at Band 6.0.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The student uses an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully communicating everyday concepts relating to food and cultural events. There are several spelling and word-choice errors, such as 'writting' instead of writing, 'contry' instead of country, 'cusines' instead of cuisines, 'thinkinh' instead of thinking, 'puddi' instead of pudding, 'fomous' instead of famous, 'amont' instead of among, 'suger' instead of sugar, 'cook' instead of cooked, and 'ssuggest onlt' instead of suggest only. Despite these noticeable errors, the vocabulary is sufficient to convey the intended meaning without severely impeding communication, aligning well with the Band 5.0 descriptor.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating some ability to structure longer sentences using subordinating conjunctions like 'because' and relative clauses. However, there are frequent grammatical and mechanical errors throughout the text, including tense issues ('is usually cook'), article omissions ('add Indian dish', 'has number of'), and pronoun/possessive errors ('it's own food'). While these errors do not completely obscure the message, they occur with high frequency and occasionally cause difficulty for the reader. This performance reflects the characteristics of a Band 5.0 score for grammar.

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

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