Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-04

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

Student answer (Band 6.5)

Dear Raj,

I am writing this letter to congratulate you for your engagement. I got your invitation and I am very happy that your wedding dates are also coming nearer. I am proud to let you know about the position I got in the renouned company for which I was trying since so long. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend your wedding as I have an important meeting arrangement to be made in my company.

Moreover, your niece has become very mischievious and has also started crawling. As I have a meeting , I need to take her to the daycare as your brother-in-law is also busy that day. But I promise you to come and meet both of you after your wedding and spend some days together.

I have purchased something special for you and I will bring it along with me once I come to India. Once again thank you for your invitation and sorry for not able to attend it. Looking forward to meet you soon.

Best wishes

Prapti

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

You successfully address all parts of the purpose of the letter by congratulating Raj on his engagement, explaining why you cannot attend the wedding, and mentioning a future visit and a gift. The tone is appropriate for a friendly letter. However, some ideas are slightly under-developed or less relevant, such as the lengthy mention of taking your niece to daycare because of a meeting, which pulls the focus slightly away from the primary purpose of declining the wedding invitation. To reach a higher band, you should ensure every detail provided directly supports the main communicative goals with more cohesive relevance.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

Your letter has a coherent overall arrangement with a clear beginning and ending, successfully organizing the greeting, the main news and refusal, personal updates, and future plans into appropriate paragraphs. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or features slightly awkward transitions, such as starting the second paragraph with 'Moreover,' which does not logically fit the shift to personal excuses about your niece. Referencing and logical progression can be smoothed out to establish a more seamless flow between sentences and ideas, moving away from rigid connectors toward more natural narrative linking.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You use an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting some less common phrases like 'congratulate you for your engagement' and 'purchase something special'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors that prevent a higher score, such as 'renouned' instead of 'renowned', 'mischievious' instead of 'mischievous', and the unnatural phrasing 'trying since so long' instead of 'trying for so long'. These lexical slips do not impede overall communication, but improving spelling accuracy and collocation control is necessary to achieve a higher band.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.5

You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, utilizing relative clauses and subordinate structures reasonably well, as seen in 'the position I got in the renowned company for which I was trying since so long'. There are some errors in grammar and punctuation present throughout the text, such as missing articles ('in the renowned company' versus 'in a renowned company') and awkward prepositions. Additionally, phrases like 'sorry for not able to attend it' contain structural inaccuracies. Nevertheless, these errors are relatively minor and rarely impede communication, reflecting a solid command of foundational sentence patterns with some developing control over complexity.

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