Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-10-05

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.

I am writing a letter regarding the advertisment for a helper for next year summer time. Madam, I am working for a company, as a housekeeper. So I can help you for cleaning your house. I am also a professional gardner. I will take care your all plants.

Your house is closer to my home, and I will be able to give you few hours to mentain your garden and cleaning work. Because I am running a top-rated cleaning company in town. I hope I will never let you down, even you can verify from other people about my work

Madam, I will be availabe around 11:30 Am to 12:30 Pm for you. Because I have also other home in town to do my job. But if you have any specfic time, so do let me know definatly I will try to manage the time from my other work places.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You successfully covered all parts of the task. You suggested how you could help Mrs Barrett by cleaning her house and taking care of her garden. You also explained why you would like to do this work, mentioning that her house is close to your home. Finally, you explained your availability, stating specific times. However, some of your ideas are a bit under-developed rather than fully expanded. For instance, the mention of your cleaning company and your availability is slightly repetitive and lacks detailed elaboration. To reach a higher level, you should extend your supporting ideas more fully by explaining precisely what gardening duties you can undertake or why proximity makes it especially convenient for your schedule, ensuring every bullet point is thoroughly explored.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

Your letter has a coherent overall arrangement and follows a logical structure appropriate for a semi-formal request. You opened with an appropriate salutation and organised your main points across three distinct paragraphs, moving from your proposed help and motivations to your availability. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or faulty. For example, the transitional links between your sentences could be smoother, and referencing is occasionally unclear, such as the abrupt shift when discussing your other jobs and time management in the final paragraph. To improve further, you need to use cohesive devices more flexibly and naturally, ensuring that transitions between paragraphs guide the reader effortlessly through your argument without feeling disjointed.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You used an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully attempting less common items related to employment and housekeeping, such as 'professional gardner' and 'top-rated cleaning company'. However, there are noticeable errors in word choice, spelling, and word form that reflect a limited and developing lexical range. For example, 'advertisment' is misspelled, 'gardner' contains a spelling error, and phrases like 'take care your all plants' demonstrate awkward collocation and preposition use. To achieve a higher score, you need to expand your control of less common vocabulary and idioms while eliminating spelling mistakes and ensuring precise word choices and natural collocations throughout your writing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You demonstrated a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, attempting structures such as conditional and causal clauses with words like 'because'. However, there are frequent errors in grammar and punctuation that can cause some difficulty for the reader. For instance, punctuation is incorrect in the opening line ('Dear Mrs, Barrett.'), articles and prepositions are mishandled in phrases like 'for next year summer time' and 'give you few hours to mentain', and verb patterns are occasionally flawed, as seen in 'take care your all plants'. To reach the next level, you need to increase your proportion of error-free sentences by paying closer attention to subject-verb agreement, article usage, prepositions within grammatical patterns, and standard punctuation.

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

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