Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 19 · 2026-10-02

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

Five months ago, you started renting an apartment on a six-month agreement. You now wish to stay in the apartment for longer than the six months you originally agreed with the owner.

Write a letter to the owner of your apartment. In your letter

• say how long you now want to rent the apartment for
• explain why your plans have changed
• tell the owner about a problem in the apartment

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear ....................................,

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear Rahul,

I am writing to request your permision to rent your apartment longer than six months that we originally agreed.

I would like to explain why i want to stay more than six months. I had applied for a intership program four months ago, and i assumed that i will be rejected because of my low academic performance in the exam, but they selected me for further study. The duration of thier intership program is 6 months.

When I started renting an apatment, we had deal on 6 months of duration. I would like to request you that if possible, could you please increase the duration to more 6 months.

Moreover, I am facing one more problem in your apartment, Water is linking from every where, so i am not able put my important document and other things in right places. If you have time, could you please solve this problrm.

I will be waiting from possitive reply from you sir,

Your faithfully,

Raj

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You successfully cover all the requirements of the prompt by stating how long you want to extend the rental, explaining the change in your plans, and reporting a maintenance issue. Your tone is appropriate for a semi-formal letter to a landlord. However, the response sits at this level because some parts are under-developed rather than fully expanded. For instance, while you mention applying for an internship program and being selected, the explanation remains quite basic. Similarly, the maintenance issue about the water leaking is introduced abruptly without much context. To reach a higher level, you should extend and support your ideas with more detail, such as specifying the exact dates of the proposed extension or explaining the nature of the internship more fully.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

Your letter has an overall coherent arrangement, and you have made a clear attempt to structure the content into logical paragraphs for the greeting, the main requests, the apartment problem, and the sign-off. However, the progression of ideas is sometimes mechanical, and cohesive devices are limited or repetitive. For example, transitioning between paragraphs relies heavily on simple additions like 'Moreover' or repetitive phrases. Referencing is also occasionally unclear, such as the sudden shift from discussing the lease duration to the water leak. To improve, you need to use a wider and more flexible range of cohesive devices to link your sentences and paragraphs smoothly, ensuring a clearer logical flow throughout the letter.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You demonstrate an adequate vocabulary range for the task, successfully communicating your message about renting the apartment and reporting a problem. You attempt some less common vocabulary, such as 'internship program' and 'academic performance'. However, there are notable spelling and word-choice errors that prevent a higher score, including 'permision', 'intership', 'thier', 'apatment', 'deal on', 'linking', and 'problrm'. Additionally, phrases like 'we had deal on 6 months of duration' lack natural collocation. To achieve a higher band, you need to use a wider range of vocabulary with greater precision, improve your spelling control, and ensure that your word choices reflect natural English collocations.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as when you write 'I had applied for a internship program four months ago, and i assumed that i will be rejected...'. There are some grammatical errors in your writing, including missing articles ('a internship program'), incorrect pronoun capitalization ('i'), tense inconsistencies ('will be rejected' instead of 'would be'), and prepositional errors ('waiting from possitive reply'). Nevertheless, these errors are classified as some rather than frequent, and they rarely impede overall communication. To move up to the next band, you should aim for a higher proportion of error-free sentences, exercise tighter control over verb tenses in reported or hypothetical contexts, and pay closer attention to articles and punctuation.

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

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