Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 21 · 2026-11-03

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

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear....... ,

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear sir or madam,

I 'am writing to explain a lot of details in my profesional career. First i would like to bigening with my introducing myself to get to know me better

so i work as software engeneer specialized in web development I studied for five years in private unversity before my gardaution i work as a junior developer in Minor startup for 3 years.

Recently I started working in a large and well-known company for this reason i would perefer to encourage me and offer me some advices for improving my line of work for exemple you can explain where is the most important periorty in my work and how i can be exelent and profesional in my this new job and how should I deal with my colleague in such a way Professional.Therefore if you have a time this saturday morning nat 10:00 i like to organise a meeting to talk more about thes details.

Thank you for your time and support

yours sincerely.

AI examiner evaluation

CriterionBand
Task Achievement / Task Response6.0
Coherence and Cohesion5.5
Lexical Resource5.0
Grammatical Range and Accuracy5.0
Overall5.5

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You address all three requested points: you outline your software-engineering studies and earlier junior-developer role, explain that you want guidance on priorities and working with colleagues, and propose a Saturday meeting. These details make the letter relevant and give the mentor a clear sense of your needs. However, some points are less fully developed: the study and work history is compressed into one sentence, and the meeting suggestion does not ask whether the time suits the mentor or offer an alternative. The opening and closing are also rather formal for a letter to a named workplace mentor. Add a little context about your experience and make the proposed arrangements more considerate and specific to strengthen the response.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The information follows a broadly sensible order, moving from your background to the support you want and then to a meeting proposal. This gives the reader an overall route through the letter. However, the response is presented as one dense block, so the shifts between these purposes are not clearly signposted. Several ideas are joined in a long sentence with repeated links such as “for this reason” and “and how,” which makes the progression feel mechanical and sometimes difficult to follow. Use separate paragraphs for your introduction, requests for guidance, and meeting arrangements. Shorter sentences and clearer transitions would make the relationships between your ideas easier to understand.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use some vocabulary relevant to your professional context, including “software engineer,” “web development,” “junior developer,” and “priorities,” and the reader can generally understand the support you are seeking. However, the range is limited and several spelling and word-choice errors reduce clarity, such as “profesional,” “advices,” and “exelent.” Some expressions are also unnatural for this context: “explain a lot of details in my professional career” and “encourage me” do not clearly express your intended meaning. Choose precise workplace collocations, such as asking for guidance on setting priorities or developing professionally, and check spelling carefully. This would make your message more fluent and appropriately professional.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt to connect several ideas in longer sentences, and the basic message remains understandable. However, the range of sentence structures is limited, and complex sentences are often not controlled successfully. For example, “I studied for five years … before my graduation I work” joins clauses without suitable punctuation and shifts tense; “I like to organise a meeting” also needs a more appropriate verb form for a polite request. There are further problems with articles, sentence boundaries, and capitalisation, as in “in a large and well-known company” within the run-on passage. Use a mix of accurate short sentences and carefully formed complex ones, and review tense consistency and punctuation.

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