Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-08-16

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

A family member is coming to stay with you. He/she will be arriving by train in the morning, but you won’t be home until the evening.

• explain arrangements you have made for them to have keys and get into the house

• tell your relative how to get from the train station to your house

• say when you will be home and suggest what you could do together that evening

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Hi, Shreya I am waiting this to inform you that I am not in home by Evening. If you reach here by morning please follow the instructions, I will give to you, I first when you reach at station take an auto from thee to 25155 nit address you have my address, but still I mention it for you, when you reached at given address please look for first plant of cactus with green color pot, you find door keys there please open it and feel relaxed, I will reached home by 5:30pm and then will enjoy together with doing lot of fun, after that please stay safe at home, also please remember do not let in strangers in home, as it’s not safe, if you want to eat something, I left cheese pasta for you in kitchen, please preheat it in oven and enjoy, will meet you soon, take care

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

You have addressed all three bullet points required by the prompt: explaining the key arrangements, providing directions from the station, and suggesting evening plans. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat limited. For example, the instructions for finding the keys under a 'cactus' are a bit vague, and the tone is slightly inconsistent for a letter to a family member. While the task requirements are met, the response would benefit from more natural phrasing and clearer, more detailed explanations to fully satisfy the 'well-developed' criteria of higher bands.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

The letter is written as a single long paragraph, which makes it difficult to follow. In IELTS writing, you should use clear paragraphing to separate different topics, such as the key arrangements, directions, and evening plans. While there is a logical progression of ideas, the lack of paragraph breaks and the limited use of cohesive devices (such as 'furthermore', 'consequently', or 'in addition') make the flow feel mechanical and somewhat disjointed. Using transition words and organizing your thoughts into distinct paragraphs would significantly improve the readability and coherence of your writing.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

Your vocabulary is adequate for the task but remains quite basic. You rely on simple verbs and phrases like 'take an auto', 'feel relaxed', and 'do lot of fun'. To achieve a higher score, you should aim for more precise and varied vocabulary. For instance, instead of 'do lot of fun', you could use 'spend some quality time together'. There are also some minor word choice errors, such as 'I am waiting this to inform you', which is not a natural English collocation. Expanding your range of collocations and idiomatic expressions will help improve your lexical score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

There are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text that occasionally impede the flow of communication. Examples include 'I am not in home by Evening' (should be 'I will not be at home in the evening'), 'I first when you reach at station' (incorrect word order), and 'do not let in strangers in home' (redundant preposition). You rely mostly on simple sentence structures, and there is a lack of complex grammatical forms. To improve, focus on subject-verb agreement, correct preposition usage, and incorporating a wider variety of sentence structures, such as relative clauses or conditional sentences.

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

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