Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-16

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 Tomi sister,

I am glad to hear about your decision to studying abroad. That is an excellent decision and i want to assure you that you will not regret your action.

I am also an hold student of Toronto university Canada, I lived and study in Toronto for more than two years and i can boldly tell you that I enjoyed my stay throughout the course of my study. It was really a great experience for me, ranging from the conducive enviroment of the school, to the friendly and accommodating students. In addition, the lecturers are well experienced and intelligent.

However, studying in Canada as thought me alot. the weather was extremely cold compared to our country, they have a wide range of tourist attractions. And their cultural diversity was great.

This university really helped me to achieved a good experience. You can apply for work in different countries and you will be employed. It also helped me to get more scores for my permanent residency application.

I wish you success as you proceed in your academic journey. I hope you enjoy your stay. Best wishes.

Yours faithfully,

Sofiat.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

You successfully covered all parts of the prompt. You mentioned where you studied by stating, 'I am also an hold student of Toronto university Canada, I lived and study in Toronto for more than two years'. You described what you learnt about the country by noting the extreme cold weather, tourist attractions, and cultural diversity. Finally, you explained how it was helpful for your studies and future by stating that it helped you achieve a good experience, find jobs in different countries, and gain points for a permanent residency application. Although the opening salutation 'Dear Tomi sister' is slightly unnatural for a letter to a friend's sister, your overall purpose and tone are appropriate for a General Training correspondence task. Therefore, your task achievement reaches the Band 6.0 level.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

Your letter has a coherent overall arrangement and follows a logical letter-writing structure, starting with a greeting and ending with a formal sign-off ('Yours faithfully, Sofiat'). You used paragraphing effectively to separate your introduction, body points, and conclusion. However, cohesion is sometimes faulty or mechanical. For instance, the transition 'However, studying in Canada as thought me alot' misuses 'However' since the previous paragraph was also positive. Additionally, referencing is sometimes unclear, and punctuation errors interrupt the smooth flow of ideas. These organizational flaws place your cohesion at the Band 6.0 level.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

You demonstrated an adequate vocabulary range for the task, successfully using terms like 'cultural diversity', 'tourist attractions', 'academic journey', and 'permanent residency application'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word choice errors throughout the text, such as 'decision to studying' instead of 'studying', 'hold' instead of 'old', 'study' instead of 'studied', 'enviroment' instead of 'environment', and 'thought' instead of 'taught'. These errors do not impede communication because your meaning remains clear, but they restrict your score. Your lexical resource fits the Band 5.5 level.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

You attempted a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as 'I am glad to hear about your decision to studying abroad' and 'I lived and study in Toronto for more than two years and i can boldly tell you that I enjoyed my stay'. However, your writing contains frequent grammatical and punctuation errors. Examples include subject-verb agreement issues ('I lived and study'), incorrect verb forms ('decision to studying', 'has thought me'), lowercase pronouns ('i'), and run-on sentences joined by commas instead of proper conjunctions or full stops. Because these errors occur frequently and affect readability, your grammatical range and accuracy correspond to a Band 5.0.

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

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