Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-10

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 6.5)

Dear Shagun,

Hope you are doing splendidly well. I am delighted to hear that you are planning to study abroad for a year as it is a part of your university program. I would be extremely grateful to share my own experience with you regarding this specific situation.

I enrolled in city university of seattle for the business management course. It was located in Vancouver, Canada. The duration of the program was 10 months. Although, I barely get spare time to explore the country, I really got inspired by the culture and the advancement of the infrastructure in terms of transportation and education. Moreover, technology has transformed the way of interaction among people significantly in this country. Everything seems so feasible and manageable. Studying abroad brought various kinds of educational opportunities for me which were considerably essential for my overall development and growth.

I hope you find this letter informative. I wish you all the best for your future.

Thank you,

Manpreet kour

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 7.0

You have successfully addressed all three bullet points in the prompt. You clearly stated where you studied (City University of Seattle in Vancouver), described the culture and infrastructure, and explained the benefits for your studies. The tone is appropriate for a letter to a friend's sister. However, the development of ideas is somewhat limited. For example, while you mention that the year abroad was 'considerably essential' for your development, you could have provided a more specific example of how it helped your studies, such as gaining a global perspective on business or improving your networking skills. Expanding on these points would have resulted in a more fully developed response.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.5

The letter is logically organized with a clear introduction, body, and conclusion. You use some cohesive devices such as 'Moreover' and 'Although' to link ideas. However, the transition between the description of the country and the benefits for your studies is a bit abrupt. Additionally, the paragraphing is slightly underdeveloped; the second paragraph contains all the main content, which makes it feel a bit dense. Using more varied cohesive devices and breaking the body into two distinct paragraphs would improve the flow and readability of the letter.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.5

You demonstrate a good range of vocabulary, using phrases like 'splendidly well', 'delighted to hear', and 'overall development'. There are some minor issues with word choice, such as 'I barely get spare time', which should be 'I barely had any spare time' to maintain the correct tense. The phrase 'feasible and manageable' is used correctly, but some of the vocabulary is slightly repetitive. To reach a higher band, try to incorporate more precise collocations and less common lexical items related to the topic of studying abroad, such as 'academic immersion' or 'cross-cultural competence'.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, which is appropriate for this task. There are some grammatical errors, particularly with verb tenses and articles. For instance, 'I barely get spare time' should be in the past tense ('had'), and 'city university of seattle' requires capitalization. Additionally, 'the way of interaction' is slightly awkward; 'the way people interact' would be more natural. While these errors do not impede communication, they indicate a need for more consistent control over tense consistency and sentence-level accuracy.

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

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