Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-10-05

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

All new employees at your workplace have a mentor - an experienced colleague who gives them advice and support in their career. As a new employee, you have been given details of your mentor.

Write a letter to introduce yourself to your new mentor. In your letter

• give a brief outline of your previous studies and work experience

• explain what help you hope your mentor can give

• suggest arrangements for a first meeting with your mentor

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear....... ,

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear Sir,

I am writing to express my keen interest in your guidance group and ask for a mentorship. I am Eisha Asher, and joined the perspective organization as a sales coordinator. Though my experience is of 5 months as I am a fresh graduate student in Commerce Science from the Islamabad university. Therefore, my educational background not matches with the work that i am doing now.

In order to gain relevant experience, I am approaching you for the guidance in this field as you lead the team in perspective domain of this respected organization.

I would be happy if you give me the advice that supports my career, and aligned with tyhe goals of organization. Let me know about your availability, so that i would be able to make some arrangements for the meeting, either in personal or online. I will be very thankful to you in this kind act and highly appreciate it.

Your's Sincerely,

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response addresses all parts of the prompt, but some areas require more thorough development. You successfully stated that you are a sales coordinator and mentioned your background, noting your recent graduation in Commerce Science from Islamabad University and five months of work experience. You also explained that you hope your mentor can provide advice supporting your career and organizational goals, and you suggested arrangements for a meeting, offering the choice of in-person or online formats. However, the tone and framing are slightly confused at the beginning, as you open by asking to 'express my keen interest in your guidance group and ask for a mentorship' rather than recognizing that a mentor has already been assigned, which makes parts of the task feel slightly misdirected. To reach a higher level, ensure that all ideas are fully developed and tailored precisely to the specific context provided in the task prompt.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The letter displays a coherent overall arrangement with clear paragraph breaks that separate your introduction and work background, your expectations from the mentor, and your suggestions for a first meeting. The progression of ideas is generally easy to follow. However, cohesion is at times mechanical or somewhat awkward. For instance, the transition 'Though my experience is of 5 months as I am a fresh graduate student... Therefore, my educational background not matches...' creates choppy connections between your points. Furthermore, referencing is occasionally unclear, such as the repeated use of 'perspective' instead of 'respective'. To improve cohesion and move up to the next band, you should use a wider variety of smooth, natural cohesive devices and ensure that referencing within and between sentences is precise and unambiguous.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

Your vocabulary is minimally adequate for the task, demonstrating an attempt to use functional business language, but it is limited and marred by noticeable errors. You attempt some less common phrases, such as 'sales coordinator', 'educational background', and 'availability', but these are offset by word-choice and collocation errors that cause some difficulty for the reader. For example, using 'perspective organization' and 'perspective domain' instead of 'respective' or 'specific' indicates a lack of precision. Additionally, 'Commerce Science' is an unnatural collocation. Spelling and word formation are generally functional, but the lexical control is restricted, meaning that communication occasionally requires extra effort from the reader to decipher your exact intended meaning.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The response uses a mix of simple and some complex sentence forms, such as concessive clauses starting with 'Though'. However, there are frequent errors in grammar and word forms that affect clarity. For example, you write 'my educational background not matches with the work that i am doing now', which contains a verb formation error ('not matches') and a capitalization slip ('i'). Other grammatical issues include awkward phrasing in 'experience is of 5 months' and the prepositional error 'advice that supports my career, and aligned with tyhe goals'. Punctuation and article usage also show inconsistencies. To achieve a higher band, you need to demonstrate better control over complex sentence structures and significantly reduce the frequency of basic grammatical errors.

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

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