Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · IELTS General Essentials · 2026-08-05

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

New neighbours have recently moved into the house/flat next door to where you live. You have examinations soon, but your neighbours play music late at night which is affecting your studies and sleep.

• explain what the problem is
• why it is causing you difficulties
• what action you would like them to take

Student answer (Band 4.5)

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to express my dissatisfaction regarding my new laptop, which i purchased a month ago from your store.

This is a Dell laptop with the latest processor I7. It freezes whenever I try to open more than one project on at same time. My laptop screen gets turn into black window, which resitict me its further usage. It takes around an hour to restart it agian.

This problem is affecting my work because I do not able to finish my tasks on time because it is not working properly. It is also affecting my overall performance and image in front of my boss.

I would be grateful, if you could look into this matter at your earliest convenience. I would like to replace this laptop because it is under warranty, and I would like to take replaced item with extra RAM capacity, so I will not face any performance issue in the near future.

Thank you for your time and processing my request at your ealiest convenience.

Yours faithfully,

Tanvir Kaur

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 1.0

The response is completely off-topic. The task instructions explicitly asked for a letter to a neighbour regarding a noise complaint related to upcoming examinations. Instead, the student wrote a formal complaint letter to a store regarding a faulty laptop. Because the response fails to address any of the bullet points provided in the prompt (the problem, the impact on studies, and the requested action regarding the neighbours), it cannot be assessed as a successful completion of the task. In an actual IELTS examination, this would be treated as a memorised or irrelevant response, resulting in a very low score for Task Achievement.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter follows a standard formal structure with a salutation, body paragraphs, and a sign-off. The ideas within the letter are logically sequenced, and the paragraphing is appropriate for a formal complaint. Cohesive devices such as 'This is a...', 'It is also...', and 'I would be grateful, if...' are used to connect sentences. While the content is entirely irrelevant to the prompt, the internal structure of the text itself is coherent and easy to follow, which prevents a lower score in this specific criterion.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is adequate for a formal complaint letter. The student uses terms like 'dissatisfaction', 'processor', 'warranty', and 'at your earliest convenience'. However, there are several spelling errors, such as 'resitict' (restrict), 'agian' (again), and 'ealiest' (earliest). Additionally, there are minor collocation issues, such as 'gets turn into black window' and 'take replaced item'. The range is sufficient to convey the intended meaning of the complaint, but the errors and lack of sophisticated vocabulary limit the score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The student uses a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are several grammatical errors throughout the text, such as 'i purchased' (capitalization), 'at same time' (missing article), 'do not able to' (incorrect verb form), and 'if you could look into this matter at your earliest convenience' (unnecessary comma). While these errors are frequent, they do not significantly impede the reader's understanding of the complaint. The student demonstrates an attempt at complex structures, but the control over these is inconsistent.

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

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