Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-07

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

Mrs Barrett, an English-speaking woman who lives in your town, has advertised for someone to help her in her home for a few hours a day next summer.

Write a letter to Mrs Barrett. In your letter

• suggest how you could help her in her home
• say why you would like to do this work
• explain when you will and will not be available

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Mrs Barrett,

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear Mrs Barrett,

Hope you are doing well. I live nearby to the Mark street, Torronto. I have seen your advertisment in the local newspaper regarding household help at your house for breif hour in the next summer. I work in the house management department, I have excellent expertise in this area of field. My skills will very helpful to assist you in the next season.

To be more specific, apart from the job, I also do client-base house hold works, I will be having paid vaction in summer from the work place. Moreover, I have team of three qualified person with quick solution method. In the summer, we also provide twenty percent discount to the customer, who avail the service in summer. Additionally, in today's time robbery cases are soared, our team's background check has been done by the federal police for past criminal offense verification purpose to provide mental peace to the customer.

Furthermore, our service includes pest control, plumbing solutions, electrical work and deep cleaning, it exlcludes parking fee and booking fee will be charged extra. We work five days a week in summer with advance notice of leave to the customer priorly. We work as per booking dates of client and we are booked till the date of 20th June, 2026. You can email us for further details.

I have attached the email address of mine and catalouge of our service with the customer care number. Hope to receive a response from you.

Faithfully

Vedang Tripathi

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

The response addresses all three bullet points, but the tone is inappropriate for the task. The prompt asks for someone to help in a home, implying a personal, individual arrangement. Instead, you have written a formal business proposal for a cleaning company, which ignores the personal nature of the request. While you mention your availability and skills, the focus on 'twenty percent discount', 'parking fees', and 'federal police' background checks makes the letter sound like a commercial advertisement rather than a personal response to a neighbor. To improve, ensure your ideas are tailored specifically to the context of the prompt.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter is organized into paragraphs, which helps the reader follow the structure. However, the logical flow is sometimes disrupted by the shift from a personal letter to a business pitch. Cohesive devices like 'Moreover', 'Additionally', and 'Furthermore' are used, but they are sometimes used mechanically or to connect ideas that do not fit well together. The transition between your personal interest in the job and the description of your company's services is abrupt. Improving the flow between sentences and ensuring that each paragraph serves the purpose of the prompt would enhance the coherence.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

You have a sufficient range of vocabulary to communicate your ideas, but there are several errors in word choice and spelling. For example, 'advertisment' is misspelled, 'breif' should be 'brief', and 'catalouge' should be 'catalogue'. Phrases like 'area of field' and 'quick solution method' are unnatural. You also use 'client-base' instead of 'client-based'. While the meaning is generally clear, the vocabulary is often repetitive or slightly misused, which prevents the response from reaching a higher band. Focus on learning common collocations and checking your spelling.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The response contains a mix of simple and complex sentences, but there are frequent grammatical errors. Issues include article usage ('the Mark street', 'the next summer'), subject-verb agreement ('robbery cases are soared'), and punctuation errors. Some sentences are run-on or lack proper structure, such as 'I work in the house management department, I have excellent expertise'. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they are frequent enough to distract the reader. You should focus on basic sentence construction and proofreading for subject-verb agreement and article usage.

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

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