Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-30

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

It is ten years since you left college. You'd like to organise an event to celebrate this anniversary with all your friends and classmates from college.

Write a letter to one of your college friends. In your letter

• say what kind of celebration event you'd like to organise

• explain why you think it would be good to celebrate in this way

• describe what help you need to organise this event

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

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

Student answer (Band 4.5)

Dear Sir or Madam

I am writing this letter to complaint about the neighbour who is living next door to me room number 262.

My name is sam rogers, I am living on third floor, room number 260. I am living here from past three years and pay my rent and utilities at time.

Last month, New neighbour moved in to the next appartment causing problems for me. Firstly, he is playing his music drum late in night. I have a work early morning so it disturbed my sleep. In addition, he is throwing garbage in the common hallway, sometime near to my door. Beacuse of that very bad smell comes from hallway and it looks very dirty.

I suggest you to take a strict action about thebad behaviour of neighbour and write him a warning letter about the playing music at night time. Moreover, send him the procedure about the garbage disposal and also make a rule or put fine on people who is throwing trash outside their rooms.

I would really appreciate if you could take a quick action as soon as possible.

Kind regards,

Sam rogers

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 2.0

The candidate has completely misunderstood the prompt. The writing task instructions specifically asked to write a letter to a college friend to organise a ten-year college reunion event, explaining the kind of event, why it is a good idea, and what help is needed. However, the student wrote a formal complaint letter to a landlord or housing authority about a noisy neighbour and garbage in the hallway. Because the response is entirely off-topic and addresses a completely different task, it cannot achieve a passing score for task fulfilment. While the tone and structure resemble a formal letter of complaint, none of the bullet points from the actual prompt have been addressed. Therefore, this falls significantly below the requirements of the task.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

Despite the severe task irrelevance, the letter maintains a logical paragraph structure. The opening states the purpose of the letter, the second paragraph introduces the writer and background context, the third details the specific problems, and the final paragraphs suggest actions and provide a polite closing. Cohesive devices such as 'Firstly', 'In addition', and 'Moreover' are used to sequence the points. However, referencing is sometimes confusing, such as addressing the letter to 'Sir or Madam' while mentioning a specific room number, and paragraphing could be better controlled. Progression is evident within the context of the complaint, earning a moderate score for organisation.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is basic and heavily repetitive, revolving around simple everyday terms related to housing and complaints. Words like 'neighbour', 'room', 'apartment', 'garbage', and 'action' are repeated frequently. There are noticeable lexical errors and inappropriate word choices, such as 'complaint' instead of 'complain' in the opening sentence, 'music drum' instead of 'drums', and 'take a quick action' instead of 'take prompt action'. The range of vocabulary is limited and minimally adequate for conveying simple meanings, but lacks the flexibility and precision required for higher band levels.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 4.5

The text contains a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, but grammatical accuracy is notably weak. There are frequent errors in article usage, prepositions, and tense consistency. Examples include 'neighbour who is living next door to me room number 262' (missing prepositions/punctuation), 'I am living here from past three years' (incorrect preposition and tense), 'at time' instead of 'on time', and 'Beacuse of that' (spelling and phrasing error). Furthermore, subject-verb agreement is faulty in phrases like 'people who is throwing trash'. These errors cause occasional difficulty for the reader and reflect a limited command of grammatical structures.

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

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