Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-10-03

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,

I am absolutely delighted and satisfied to express my cherished views for the article "The book that influenced me most".

To begin with, the whole concept of the book is based on the real life struggles and incidents that every indivdual face in their life on daily basis, for instance, traffic jams, relationship concerns, workload and greed for the money and this book served as a medicenen of movtivation to readers to inspire them to fightback after encountering enormous issues. To be honest, after I started reading this book I was not excited but, as I kept reading further I find that now I am not unhappy with my life and I am ready to fight with problems.

I sincerely appreciate you time and efforts to write and publish this kind of sesnsitive book, the reason is numerous people are hopeless and unhappy with their life, however, after reading this book their state of mind will be completely positive.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

Your faithfully,

Tarspreet

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 5.0

You addressed the main parts of the task by describing what the book was about and explaining its influence on you, but your response only partially satisfies all prompt requirements. Specifically, your attempt to say whether the book would be likely to influence other people is limited and under-developed, relying on a brief generalization that 'numerous people are hopeless and unhappy with their life'. While you mentioned real-life struggles like 'traffic jams, relationship concerns, workload and greed', the overall ideas lack full elaboration and clarity in terms of how the book specifically impacts a wider audience. To move to a higher level, you need to ensure every bullet point is fully expanded with supporting details and clearer explanations.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 5.0

Your letter shows some basic organization with a clear salutation and sign-off, but there is a lack of clear overall progression between your ideas. The transition from describing the book's contents to discussing its personal impact feels abrupt. Furthermore, the use of cohesive devices is somewhat repetitive and mechanical, such as 'To begin with' and 'To be honest', while referencing is not always clear, leaving connections between sentences slightly disjointed. To improve, you should use a wider variety of cohesive links naturally and ensure your paragraphs flow logically from one point to the next, enhancing the overall readability of the text.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You used a limited but minimally adequate range of vocabulary for this task, successfully attempting some less common words and phrases like 'cherished views', 'fightback', and 'sensitive book'. However, there are noticeable vocabulary choices and spelling errors that cause some difficulty, such as 'indivdual' instead of individual, 'medicenen of movtivation' instead of medicine of motivation, and 'sesnsitive' instead of sensitive. You also used some awkward collocations, such as 'greed for the money'. To achieve a higher score, you need to expand your lexical range and eliminate spelling and word-choice inaccuracies by carefully proofreading your writing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

Your writing demonstrates a limited range of sentence structures, relying heavily on basic patterns with some attempts at complex sentences that often turn out faulty. There are frequent errors in grammar and punctuation that can cause difficulty for the reader, including subject-verb agreement issues ('every indivdual face' instead of faces), incorrect prepositions ('appreciate you time' instead of your time, 'fight with problems' instead of fight problems), and punctuation errors like comma splices. To reach the next band, you need to incorporate a wider variety of complex structures with greater accuracy and maintain better control over basic grammatical rules and punctuation.

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