Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-28

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 5.5)

Dear Sir, Hope you are doing well, I am writing to share my views on the book that has had the greatest influence on my life. The book I would like to recommend is The Alchemist By Paula coelho. The novel tells the story of Santiago, a young shepherd who travels in search of hidden treasure. During his journey, he meets different people and faces numerous challenges, which teach him important lessons about dreams, courage, preservance and following his own path. This book has profound influence on me because it changed the way i look at challenges and personal goals. It taught me that setbacks are neccessarily failures but can instead be valuable . I believe this book could influence many other prople, particularly those who feel uncertain about the future. Its simple yet meaningful message is universal. Thankyou for considering my contribution to your article. Yours faithfully, Saba

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.5

The response covers all three bullet points required by the prompt. You successfully describe the book ('The novel tells the story of Santiago, a young shepherd...'), explain its influence ('This book has profound influence on me because it changed the way i look at challenges...'), and consider whether it would influence others ('I believe this book could influence many other prople...'). However, the task achievement score is slightly limited by two issues: the length requirement was not met (the response is 149 words, falling just short of the 150-word minimum), and the author's name contains a spelling error ('Paula coelho' instead of Paulo Coelho). Despite these minor omissions and under-length penalty, all core content requirements of the prompt are addressed adequately.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.5

The letter maintains a coherent overall arrangement with a clear progression of ideas from introduction to description, personal influence, and potential impact on others. Paragraphing is used to separate distinct topics, which aids readability. However, cohesive devices are somewhat basic, and there are mechanical errors in the opening formula ('Dear Sir, Hope you are doing well, I am writing...'), which constitutes a run-on sentence and faulty punctuation. Referencing and linking are generally clear, but the lack of more sophisticated cohesive links keeps this criterion at the band 6 level.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, with attempts at less common lexical items such as 'profound influence', 'uncertain about the future', and 'universal'. However, there are noticeable spelling and word-choice errors that detract from the writing, including 'preservance' (perseverance), 'neccessarily' (necessarily), and 'prople' (people). Furthermore, the sentence 'setbacks are neccessarily failures' contains a missing word or semantic flaw ('are not necessarily failures'). While communication is not impeded, these lexical errors and typos restrict the score to a band 6.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

You demonstrate a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as 'During his journey, he meets different people and faces numerous challenges, which teach him important lessons...'. There are several grammatical and punctuation errors throughout the text, including lowercase 'i' ('way i look'), run-on phrasing in the greeting, and missing negatives or words in 'setbacks are neccessarily failures' (likely intended to mean 'are not necessarily failures'). Despite these errors, the structures are generally understandable and do not impede overall communication, fitting the band 6 descriptor well.

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