Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-13
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 Sister,
How are you and how is everyone at home. Hope everything is fine at your side.
I have heard that you are planning to study abroad as part of university course for one year. As you know I did course at university in Australia and it was about environmental health and planning.
As you have asked me about my experience about the country, I can say Australia is a very beautiful place to live and study and the people there are also very friendly.
As far as the university course is concerned, it was very helpful in my studies and I got plenty of experience about that course.
So, I would strongly recommend that you must take admission in that course and that would be very helpful for your future.
You can ask me for any help from me and I will surely try to help you dear sister
Thank you.
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 6.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 6.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.5 |
| Overall | 6.0 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0
The response successfully covers all the bullet points outlined in the task instructions. You clearly stated where you studied, mentioning a university in Australia, and described what you learned about the country, highlighting that it is a very beautiful place with friendly people. Furthermore, you explained how the environmental health and planning course was helpful for your future studies and career prospects. The tone is mostly appropriate for an informal letter to a friend's sister, although the salutation 'Dear Sister' is a bit unnatural compared to addressing her by name. Overall, all parts of the prompt are addressed adequately, meeting the requirements for this task.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0
The letter maintains a coherent overall arrangement with a logical progression of ideas from greeting to the closing statement. However, the paragraphing is very basic and the text lacks varied cohesive devices, relying heavily on repetitive sentence openings such as 'As...' and simple conjunctions like 'and'. For example, sentences starting with 'As you have asked me...' and 'As far as the university course is concerned...' create a somewhat mechanical structure. Referencing and paragraph transitions could be smoother to achieve a higher band score. Nonetheless, the message flows clearly enough for the reader to follow without confusion.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, but it remains quite simple and repetitive. Phrases like 'very beautiful place', 'very friendly', and 'very helpful' demonstrate a limited lexical range. While you attempt some topic-specific vocabulary such as 'environmental health and planning', there is a lack of less common or idiomatic lexical items. Minor unnatural expressions occur, such as 'take admission in that course', which would more natively be expressed as 'enroll in that course'. Spelling and word formation are generally accurate, but the overall lexical flexibility restricts the score to a band 5.5.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5
The response features a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as the conditional-like clause 'As you know I did course at university in Australia and it was about environmental health and planning.' There are several grammatical errors and missing articles, including 'did course' instead of 'did a course', and 'at university course' instead of 'a university course'. Additionally, punctuation is slightly neglected, particularly in the opening and closing lines. While these errors do not impede overall communication, they occur frequently enough to prevent the grammar score from rising into the higher bands.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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