Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-11-06

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

Your friend has been offered a place on a course at the university where you studied. He/She would like your advice about finding a place to live.

Write an email to your friend. In your email

• describe where you lived when you were a student at the university
• recommend the best way for him/her to look for accommodation
• warn him/her of mistakes students make when choosing accommodation

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your email as follows:

Dear ..........,

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear Tony,

Hey! how are you doing?It has been long since we caught together.I heard that you got a place on a course at the university. Well this is a good opportunity for you achieve your dream now.

First and foremost,After getting enrolled at university, your first task would be finding housing.When i was a student I found my place on an addvertisment on university display board.

However,now a days students has an option of facebook marketplace, where you will be able to see posting of houses with pictures and videos. Furthermore, on this platform you will also able to see details about house such as rent, availability and keeping pets.

On the other hand, the most and common mistake students do some time is that,some time there are fake addvertisments too. So donot try to give rent in advance by only watching it on marketplace. Makesure you vist there and check everything before giving money to stranger. In lots of cases students got scamed by hme owner by watching fake posting.

Hope you will get a nice place to live. If you have any question feel free to ask.Waiting for your reply.

Yours lovingly,

Nav.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You address all three requested points and maintain a friendly tone suitable for writing to a friend. You explain that you found accommodation through a university noticeboard, recommend Facebook Marketplace and mention useful listing details, then warn Tony not to pay before viewing a property. These are relevant, practical ideas. The advice about how to search is more developed than the description of your own student housing, which gives no detail about the type or location of the place. The warning could also be clearer about checking the landlord and confirming the rental terms, rather than focusing mainly on fake advertisements. Adding a little specific detail to these points would make the response more complete.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.0

The email has a recognisable structure: a greeting and opening, advice about finding accommodation, a warning, and a friendly closing. The sequence is generally logical, and phrases such as “First and foremost,” “Furthermore,” and “On the other hand” help signal relationships between ideas. However, some transitions feel mechanical or do not express the relationship precisely; “On the other hand” introduces a warning rather than a contrasting viewpoint. Several ideas are crowded into long sentences, and punctuation spacing makes the flow harder to follow, as in “how are you doing?It has been long.” Use clear paragraph breaks for the housing description, search recommendation, and warning, and choose simpler, more accurate links between them.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use enough vocabulary to communicate the main advice, including relevant terms such as “availability,” “rent,” “fake advertisements,” and “in advance.” There are also attempts at more specific language, such as “university display board” and “Facebook marketplace.” However, spelling and word-choice errors are noticeable and sometimes make the reader pause: “addvertisment,” “scamed,” and “hme owner” are examples. Some phrases are also unnatural, including “got together” for meeting and “give rent in advance” for paying rent. Aim to learn common collocations for accommodation and check spelling carefully. More precise wording would make your practical advice sound clearer and more natural without changing its friendly tone.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt both simple and more extended sentence forms, for example, “When i was a student I found my place…” and the sentence explaining what users can see on the platform. The main message remains understandable, but errors in sentence structure, verb forms, agreement, articles, and punctuation occur across the email. Examples include “for you achieve” instead of “for you to achieve,” “students has” instead of “students have,” and “you will also able to see” instead of “you will also be able to see.” Tense control is also uneven in “students got scamed” when describing a general risk. Practise checking each sentence for a complete verb phrase and consistent subject–verb agreement, and use capital letters and spaces after punctuation.

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

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