Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-08-13

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

A magazine wants to include contributions from its readers for an article called 'The book that influenced me most'.

Write a letter to the editor of the magazine about the book that influenced you most. In your letter

- describe what this book was about
- explain how this book influenced you
- say whether this book would be likely to influence other people

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Student answer (Band 6.0)

Dear Mahesh Sir,

I have been waiting for 2 months to write to this. I would like to describe the book that influenced me most. One year ago, I have read a book named 'Alcoholic in a family' written by AL-Anon. The book was very interesting because it includes reality that almost all family has one alcoholic person. As a result, others suffer a lot.

Moreover, the book influences me most due to it write up and in-depth description regarding how to deal with alcoholic in the family and live a happy life. Furthermore, reading this type of stories will change your mindset and reduce stress among people and family members. From my point of view, I would suggest you include about the book, so that it would be change mindset in society and drunken people did not affect atmosphere in the family and society.

I hope you understood my point and mentioned about the book in your magazine.

Yours Sincerely,

Kinjal.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response addresses all three bullet points of the prompt: describing the book, explaining its influence, and discussing its potential impact on others. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat limited. For instance, the explanation of how the book influenced you is quite brief and relies on general statements rather than specific personal insights. While the task is fulfilled, the ideas could be expanded with more detail to provide a more compelling narrative. The tone is generally appropriate for a magazine contribution, though the opening salutation 'Dear Mahesh Sir' is slightly informal for a general magazine editor.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter is organized into logical paragraphs, which helps the reader follow the progression of ideas. Cohesive devices such as 'Moreover', 'Furthermore', and 'As a result' are used to link sentences. However, some transitions feel a bit mechanical, and the flow between the description of the book and its influence could be smoother. The referencing is generally clear, though the connection between the book's content and the suggestion to the editor in the final paragraph is slightly abrupt. Overall, the structure is coherent and serves the purpose of the letter well.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is adequate for the task but lacks variety and precision. Phrases like 'very interesting' and 'suffer a lot' are quite basic. There are also some awkward collocations and word choices, such as 'it write up' instead of 'its content' or 'writing style', and 'drunken people did not affect atmosphere' which is grammatically and lexically imprecise. To reach a higher band, you should aim for more sophisticated vocabulary related to literature and personal growth, and pay closer attention to word forms and collocations.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The response contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally hinder clarity. For example, 'I have read a book' should be 'I read a book' (past simple for a finished time), and 'almost all family has' should be 'almost every family has'. There are also issues with article usage and subject-verb agreement, such as 'it would be change mindset'. While these errors do not completely impede communication, they are persistent throughout the text and indicate a need for more careful proofreading of basic tense and structure.

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

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