Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 20 · 2026-10-06

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 5.0)

Dear Jaspreet,

I got your letter for getting an advise regarding spending a year to study abroad under your university. I would like to help you by giving some advise.

Well if you get a chance to grab this opportunity you should take this. I would suggest you to take admission in university of Manitoba. I am studying for my masters degree. This university have all the basic facility and teaching staff is also great here.

As, I am living from last 10 months I would like to tell you some merits of this country like, The weather in this country is very pleasant and nice. They temperature stay between 12-30 degree. This country is such great place according to safety standards.

Studying in aboard gives you a good exposure moreover you can get the chance to learn the different culture of the country. More or less it is the one of the best decision for your career. Hoping this letter helps you in positive manner.

Your faithfully

Gurman

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

The response addresses the main parts of the task, but the development of ideas remains limited and somewhat under-developed. For example, while you mention where you studied by naming the University of Manitoba, the description of what you learned about the country is quite basic and focuses narrowly on the weather and safety standards. Furthermore, explaining why your year abroad was helpful for your studies is only touched upon superficially with general statements about getting exposure and making a good career decision, rather than detailing specific academic benefits. To move to a higher band, you would need to extend and fully support all parts of the prompt with more detailed explanations and specific examples from your experience.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

There is a basic level of organisation, and the letter format is correctly attempted with an appropriate opening and closing, such as 'Dear Jaspreet' and 'Your faithfully'. However, there is no clear overall progression of ideas, and the connection between sentences can feel mechanical. Cohesive devices are sometimes used awkwardly or inaccurately, such as starting paragraphs with 'Well if you get a chance' or using 'As, I am living from last 10 months', which disrupts the natural flow of the letter. Paragraphing is present, but the internal logical links within paragraphs need more variety and precision to achieve clearer transitions between points.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use a limited but minimally adequate range of vocabulary for this general task, such as 'opportunity', 'university', and 'career'. However, there are noticeable word choice and collocation errors that cause some difficulty or unnaturalness for the reader, including phrases like 'getting an advise' instead of 'asking for advice', 'take admission' instead of 'enroll', and studying 'in aboard' instead of 'abroad'. Spelling and word form issues also appear, such as the incorrect repetition of 'advise' as a verb and noun. To improve, you need to use a wider range of less common lexical items with greater precision and stylistic awareness.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

The writing shows a limited range of sentence structures, relying mostly on simple sentences with occasional attempts at complex forms that often contain errors. There are frequent grammatical mistakes regarding prepositions, verb forms, and articles, such as 'I am living from last 10 months' instead of 'for the last 10 months', 'This university have' instead of 'has', and 'They temperature stay' instead of 'The temperature stays'. Punctuation errors are also present, such as the incorrect sign-off 'Your faithfully' instead of 'Yours faithfully'. These frequent errors require the reader to occasionally expend effort to understand the intended meaning.

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

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