Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-09
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 sister,
I hope you are doing well, and your sister also. Your decision is good for your future to study abroad because you earn lots of new things in foreign country, as i completed my study in humber college and my course is hospitality management.
Firstly, i explore numerous things in Canada such as new people, their culture, behavior, and different languages. I also visit lots of historical places in this country and enjoy. Also, i making new friends of new religion.
Furthermore, there are many advantages of study abroad in different fields. I did hospitality management, there are lots of benefits of this study, how to behave with customer, how to prepare food and making presentation. In the future i can open my own restaurant through this field and this is beneficial for my PR in this country.
I hope to hear from you soon.
Kind regards,
Ria.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 5.5 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 6.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5
The letter addresses all three bullet points: the location (Humber College), what was learned about the country (culture, language, history), and the benefits to studies (hospitality skills). However, the development of these ideas is somewhat limited. For instance, the description of the country is quite generic, and the explanation of how the year abroad helped with studies is brief. The tone is also slightly inconsistent; addressing the recipient as 'Dear sister' is incorrect given the prompt specifies she is the 'younger sister of one of your friends,' making the relationship more distant than a sibling. The letter is functional but lacks the depth required for a higher band.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0
The letter is organized into paragraphs, which helps the reader follow the structure. There is some use of cohesive devices such as 'Firstly,' 'Furthermore,' and 'Also.' However, the flow between sentences is occasionally mechanical, and the logical progression within paragraphs is sometimes disjointed. For example, the transition from discussing the country to discussing hospitality management is abrupt. The use of referencing is also slightly confusing due to the initial salutation error, which impacts the overall clarity of the letter's purpose.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The vocabulary is adequate for the task but remains quite basic. Phrases like 'earn lots of new things' and 'explore numerous things' are imprecise. There are some attempts at topic-specific vocabulary related to hospitality, such as 'hospitality management' and 'customer,' but the range is limited. The word choice is often repetitive, and there are minor inaccuracies in collocation, such as 'making new friends of new religion' and 'beneficial for my PR,' which sound unnatural. A wider range of vocabulary would be needed to express ideas with more precision.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The response contains a mix of simple and some complex sentence structures. However, there are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text, such as 'as i completed my study' (tense inconsistency), 'i explore numerous things' (should be past tense), 'i making new friends' (missing auxiliary verb), and 'there are lots of benefits of this study, how to behave' (punctuation and sentence structure issues). While these errors do not completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to distract the reader and indicate a lack of control over complex grammatical forms.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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