Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-12

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 6.0)

Dear shasha,

I was delighted to hear that you are considering spending a year abraud as part of your university course. Since I recently completed a year overseas, I world like to share my experience with you.

Last year, I studied at university of Melbourne in Australia through an exchange programme. I chose to study abroad because I wanted to experience a different education system, develop my independence, and improve my future carrer prospects.

The year abroad was extremely helpful for my studies. The university placed a strong emphasis on independence research and group projects. Which helped me develop my communication, presentation, and problem solving skills. As a result, I became more confident and performed better academically

I also learned a great deal about Australia and its culture? For example, I was impressed by how multicultural the country is and how people from different backgrounds live together harmoniously.

The most difficult aspect of the experience was being away from my family and friends. Although I felt homesick at first, I gradually adjusted and made many new friends.

Overall, I would stronger recommend studying abroad as it is both educational and rewarding.

Best wishes,

KHUSHAL SHARMA

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.5

The response covers all parts of the task well. You successfully addressed the sister by name, told her where you studied ("university of Melbourne in Australia"), described what you learned about the country (“multicultural the country is and how people from different backgrounds live together harmoniously”), and explained how the year abroad helped your studies by developing your communication and problem-solving skills. The tone is appropriate for an informal letter to a friend's sister. The ideas are clearly relevant and well-developed, satisfying the requirements for a Band 7.0 performance.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

Your letter is organised into clear, logical paragraphs that each serve a distinct purpose, moving naturally from the introduction to where you studied, how it helped your academics, what you learned about the culture, the challenges faced, and a final recommendation. You used appropriate cohesive devices such as "Last year", "For example", and "Although". However, there are minor cohesion and punctuation faults, such as the sentence fragment "Which helped me develop my communication...", which should be linked to the preceding sentence. Overall, the organisation is clear and logical, earning a Band 6.5.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

You demonstrate a sufficient range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms like "exchange programme", "education system", "prospects", and "harmoniously". However, there are a few spelling and typographical errors, such as "abraud" instead of abroad, "world" instead of would, and "carrer" instead of career. Furthermore, you used the phrase "stronger recommend" instead of the correct adverbial form "strongly recommend". Because of these vocabulary and spelling slips that slightly detract from precision, the lexical resource fits comfortably at a Band 6.0.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

You make use of a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as conditional or dependent clauses like "Since I recently completed a year overseas, I would like to share my experience with you." Grammatical control is generally good, but there are a few punctuation and sentence structure errors, such as ending a culture sentence with a question mark instead of a full stop ("country and its culture?") and the aforementioned sentence fragment starting with "Which helped..." instead of a comma. Despite these minor errors, meaning is never impeded, demonstrating the characteristics of a Band 6.5 performance.

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