Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-14

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 soniya,

I hope you are doing well, I would love to share my experince with you.As you know i recently complete my studying in canada . I really enjoyed this time.

Firstly, I was happy to hear that your sister are thinking about studying abroad .I did my studying at sheridan college Toronto in canada. I did social service worker as you know i have keen interset in it. During studying here i got a lot of opportunity to know diffrent type of people and culture . They have numerous knowledge about all things. Which i never thing about . Canada have the diffrent education system as compare to us. Which is unique and intresting for all students.

Secondly, While my study i learnt bunch of things which gonna help me to grow my career such as communications skills, my confidence.Before Iwas Introvert

but now I love to talk with Individuals.

Furthermore, I believe that studying abroad Is good for everyone who want to explore . Diffrenet environment help us to become more independent and responsible which help to get more success.

I highly recommend it to you .

Warm Regards,

Gagandeep

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

You successfully covered all parts of the letter prompt. You addressed the friend's sister directly, told her where you studied (Sheridan College in Toronto, Canada), described what you learned about the country, and explained why your year abroad was helpful for your studies. Your purpose is clear throughout the letter, and you maintained an appropriately friendly tone. However, some ideas are a bit brief and could have been extended further, such as elaborating more on the Canadian education system or specific cultural insights. For example, when you mention that Canada has a different education system compared to 'us', this could have been explained in more detail. Overall, you met all the bullet points effectively, which places your task achievement securely in the band 6.0 range.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

Your letter has a clear overall arrangement and follows a logical structure. You used appropriate greeting and closing formulas, and you attempted to use cohesive devices such as 'Firstly', 'Secondly', and 'Furthermore' to sequence your ideas. However, paragraphing and referencing are sometimes a bit mechanical or faulty. For instance, the transition between paragraphs could be smoother, and there are occasional shifts in focus that disrupt the natural flow. Additionally, pronoun referencing is occasionally unclear, such as when you write 'Which I never thing about' starting a new sentence fragment. Despite these lapses in cohesive control, the letter remains coherent overall, and the progression of ideas is fairly easy to follow, making a band 6.0 score appropriate.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

You demonstrated an adequate range of vocabulary for the task and attempted some less common items such as 'introvert', 'independent', and 'responsible'. However, there are numerous lexical and spelling inaccuracies throughout your writing, such as 'experince' instead of 'experience', 'complete' instead of 'completed', 'interset' instead of 'interest', 'diffrent' instead of 'different', and 'intresting' instead of 'interesting'. Furthermore, some word choices are imprecise or unnatural, such as 'got a lot of opportunity' or 'learnt bunch of things'. While these errors do not completely impede communication because your overall meaning remains understandable, their frequency prevents you from achieving a higher band score. You operate at a solid band 5.5 for lexical resource.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

You attempted a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, such as using subordinate clauses with 'which' and 'who'. However, your writing contains frequent grammatical and punctuation errors. There are issues with tense consistency, such as mixing present and past tenses ('As you know i recently complete my studying... I really enjoyed this time'). There are also sentence boundary errors, including sentence fragments like 'Which I never thing about' and 'Which is unique and intresting for all students', as well as missing capitalisation and incorrect spacing around punctuation marks. Because these errors occur frequently and occasionally strain the reader, although they rarely completely impede comprehension, your grammar score sits at a band 5.0.

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

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