Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-05

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 Sarah,

I hope this letter finds you well! I am writing to catch up and tell you about the university course that you are going to have in Australia in University of Perth.

To begin with i wanted to tell you that i came across the same course and procedure during my study. I was studing economics which is also similar to your course.

It is one of the biggest department in the university.

Moving on to the new palce, i would say the perth is quiet charmin

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 3.0

Your response addresses the task only partially, and the length requirement of at least 150 words has not been met, as your text contains only 89 words. While you begin the letter to your friend's sister by mentioning a university course in Australia, you do not fully develop all parts of the prompt. You touch upon your study of economics, but you fail to adequately describe what you learnt about the country itself or fully explain why your year abroad was helpful for your studies. To improve, you need to ensure all bullet points are thoroughly covered and meet the minimum word count.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.5

Your letter shows some organisation, but there is no clear overall progression of ideas. You attempt to use transitional markers such as 'To begin with' and 'Moving on to the new palce', but these cohesive devices are sometimes mechanical or used inaccurately. Furthermore, the paragraphing is underdeveloped, and the sudden cut-off at the end makes the flow disjointed. To achieve a higher band, you should logically sequence your ideas into clear paragraphs with smoother, more natural transitions between your points.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

Your vocabulary range is limited but minimally adequate to convey basic meaning. You use some appropriate terms like 'university course' and 'economics', but there are noticeable spelling and word choice errors, such as 'palce' instead of 'place', 'charmin' instead of 'charming', and lowercase 'i' instead of 'I'. These errors reflect a restricted control over word forms and spelling. To improve your lexical score, you should try to incorporate a wider variety of less common vocabulary and carefully check your spelling and word selection.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You demonstrate a very limited range of sentence structures, relying mostly on simple sentences with frequent errors. There are noticeable mistakes in verb forms, such as 'i wanted' (missing capitalization) and 'I was studing' (spelling error in the continuous form), as well as missing articles, as seen in 'in University of Perth' and 'biggest department'. These frequent errors in grammar and punctuation can cause some difficulty for the reader. To improve, you should practice using a better mix of complex sentence structures and monitor your basic grammatical accuracy.

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

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