Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-09-21

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 4.5)

Dear Peter,

I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing to express my sincere gratitude for delightful evening I spent at your with your family.

It was very heart warming experience and I truly appreciate the hospitality. All the dishes were very delicious your mother had best culinary skills. I liked the curry which she made it was amazing taste and serving style was so unique. I throughly like all dishes and I really appreciate that your whole family make comfortable to me.

I genuinely like the closeness and affection with your family. The way everyone interacted and share laughter showed a beautiful bond with all member. I think this the main reason I like positive atmosphere and feel happy.

I wanted to extend an invitation for you and your family to visit me as well, with your family. It would be wonderful opportunity to spend more quality time together. I believe our families could create some lasting memories.

Once again, thank you for the memorable evening. I look forward to the possibility of hosting you soon.

With love,

Havinder.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 3.0

The response completely fails to address the actual task prompt, which required writing a letter to a friend's sister about a university year abroad. Instead, the candidate wrote a thank-you letter to a friend named Peter for a dinner party with his family. There is no mention of studying abroad, the location of study, what was learned about the country, or why the experience was helpful for university studies. Because the response is entirely off-topic and addresses a completely different prompt scenario, it fails to meet the basic requirements of Task Achievement. Consequently, the score reflects a minimal engagement with the actual instructions provided.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5

Despite the severe off-topic issue in Task Achievement, the letter maintains a recognisable social letter structure with a standard greeting, clear paragraph breaks, and an appropriate sign-off. Ideas within paragraphs are grouped logically around thanking the host family and extending a reciprocal invitation. However, cohesive devices are quite basic and repetitive, relying heavily on simple connectors like 'and', 'also', and 'because'. Referencing is sometimes unclear, such as the dangling phrase in the final invitation paragraph ('to visit me as well, with your family'). Paragraphing is functional, but overall progression is limited by the repetitive nature of the content.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is generally basic and repetitive, though it is mostly adequate for expressing simple social gratitude. Phrases like 'very delicious', 'heart warming experience', and 'genuinely like' appear frequently. There are noticeable word choice and collocation errors, such as 'delightful evening I spent at your with your family' and 'your mother had best culinary skills' instead of 'the best culinary skills'. The candidate attempts some less common vocabulary items such as 'hospitality' and 'culinary skills', but inaccuracies in spelling and phrasing—such as 'throughly' instead of 'thoroughly'—prevent the score from reaching higher bands.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.5

The text displays a mix of simple and moderately complex sentence structures, but grammatical accuracy is quite low throughout. There are frequent missing articles ('for delightful evening', 'at your with your family'), incorrect verb forms ('the curry which she made it was amazing taste'), and awkward phrasing ('make comfortable to me' instead of 'made me feel comfortable'). Punctuation is basic and sometimes faulty. While the meaning remains generally understandable despite the errors, the high frequency of grammatical slips across most sentences indicates a lack of control over complex structures.

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

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