Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-03

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 5.5)

Dear Ranveer,

I hope you're doing great!!. It's been a long time we have not talked to each other. How's things going in your life?

I am so excited to tell you through this letter that as you know it's been 10 years we left the college with the master degree. I wanted to celebrate my 10 years of success in my job after I left the college.

I would like to organize an event in the XYZ hall in Mumbai to celebrate our college life. I would like to invite all my friends and classmates to share my happiness with them. I think it would be a good idea to meet with all our classmates and get to know what is going on with everyone?.

I need some help if you can find out everyone's contact numbers or social media accounts and send them an invitation from my side. It would be really appreciated.

I hope you will come to my house couple days before the event. I can't wait to see you!!

With Love,

Simer

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the prompt, as you successfully mention the kind of celebration event you would like to organise, explain why it is a good idea, and describe the help you need from your friend Ranveer. However, some ideas are a bit under-developed and confused in purpose. For instance, in the second paragraph, you mention celebrating 'my 10 years of success in my job' rather than focusing primarily on the ten-year college anniversary requested by the prompt. Furthermore, the format of a personal letter is generally maintained with an appropriate friendly opening and closing, and the bullet points are all covered, but the purpose drifts slightly towards personal career success instead of a shared college reunion throughout the entirety of the text.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

There is a coherent overall arrangement to the letter, and the progression of your ideas is generally clear from the event details to the request for help. You have structured the letter into distinct paragraphs, which helps organise your thoughts about the celebration, the reasons for meeting, and the assistance required. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or slightly faulty. For example, referencing can be unclear, such as in the opening where you write 'It's been a long time we have not talked to each other,' and transitional markers between paragraphs are sparse. While paragraphing is used, the division and logical flow between the personal update and the main task requirements could be managed more smoothly to achieve a higher level of cohesion.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

Your lexical range is adequate for the task, allowing you to communicate your basic message clearly. You make attempts at less common vocabulary, such as 'celebrate our college life' and 'social media accounts,' but there are noticeable errors in word choice and phrasing that reflect a limited range. For example, writing 'we left the college with the master degree' instead of 'a master's degree' or 'mastered' contains collocation and preposition inaccuracies. Additionally, minor errors like 'couple days' instead of 'a couple of days' appear. These lexical slips do not severely impede communication, but they restrict the precision and flexibility of your vocabulary usage.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and conditional structures like 'I need some help if you can find out...' However, there are frequent grammatical errors in sentence structures, verb forms, and prepositions. For example, the opening question 'How's things going in your life?' contains a subject-verb agreement error, and 'It's been a long time we have not talked' lacks the correct prepositional or connective structure ('since we last talked'). Additionally, punctuation is occasionally awkward, such as the double exclamation marks. While these errors rarely completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to reflect a limited control over accurate grammatical patterns.

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

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