Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-04
IELTS Writing Task 1 question
The younger sister of one of your friends is thinking about spending a year studying abroad as part of her university course. You did this recently, and she has asked you about your experience.
Write a letter to your friend's sister. In your letter
tell her where you studied during your year abroad
describe what you learnt about the country you studied in
explain why your year abroad was helpful for your studies
Begin your letter as follows:
Dear........,
Student answer (Band 5.5)
Dear Imene,
I am writing this letter to give you a feedback about my studiying abroad experience.
last year, I had the opportunity to study for one year in France, in the SAINT CHARLE university in Paris, during this period, I stayed in my oncle s house there.
It was a very rich experience and it allowed me to learn a lot of things about the culture and traditions there, in addition, it also gave me the oppotunity to discover a lot of momnuments and landmarks, and discover the extraordinary architecture of the buildings. I also enjoyed about the weather and spent time different climate.
During studiying my year abroad, I learned to communicate in a different language, gain a new knowledge and do surveys, which was very halpful for my graduation dessertation about a foreing language. I highly recommand to try this experience and study a year abroad.
keep in touch,
Tima
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The letter addresses all three bullet points: the location (Paris), the cultural learning, and the academic benefits. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat superficial. For instance, the explanation of how the year abroad helped with the 'graduation dissertation' is quite brief and lacks specific detail. While the tone is appropriate for a letter to a friend's sister, the response would benefit from more elaboration on the academic impact to fully satisfy the task requirements. The content is relevant, but the ideas could be expanded to provide a more comprehensive and engaging response.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The letter is organized into logical sections, starting with an introduction and moving through the required points. However, the paragraphing is insufficient; the entire body of the letter is essentially one block of text, which hinders readability. While some cohesive devices are used, such as 'in addition' and 'during', they are sometimes used mechanically or with awkward phrasing. The progression of ideas is generally clear, but the lack of distinct paragraph breaks makes the structure feel somewhat cluttered. Improving the use of paragraphing and varying the transition words would significantly enhance the flow.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The vocabulary is adequate for the task but lacks variety and precision. There are several spelling errors, such as 'studiying' (studying), 'oncle' (uncle), 'oppotunity' (opportunity), 'momnuments' (monuments), 'halpful' (helpful), 'dessertation' (dissertation), and 'foreing' (foreign). These errors are frequent enough to be noticeable. While the student attempts to use topic-specific vocabulary like 'architecture' and 'landmarks', the overall range is limited. To reach a higher band, the student should focus on accurate spelling and incorporating more sophisticated collocations to express ideas more naturally.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5
The letter contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors. Examples include 'give you a feedback' (give you feedback), 'in the SAINT CHARLE university' (at Saint Charles University), 'in my oncle s house' (at my uncle's house), and 'I also enjoyed about the weather' (I also enjoyed the weather). Punctuation is also inconsistent, particularly with comma splices and missing apostrophes. While the meaning is generally clear, the high frequency of errors in basic grammar and sentence construction prevents the writing from reaching a higher band. More attention to subject-verb agreement and preposition usage is needed.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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