Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-08-26

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 6.5)

Dear Naren,

I hope you're doing well. Its been a while since we last spoke. I'm elated to know that you got an admission in MITS course at Ontario Tech University. I'm writing to provide you an advice on how to select a proper accommodation near the university.

Firstly, I would like to provide my accommodation details. I lived in the townhouse near the university. These townhouses are only to accommodate the students and looked after by student unions.

I would suggest that you should start looking for an accommodation in the Facebook market place or Kijiji. These websites would actively post the accurate and updated information regarding the university housing.

Finally, I warn you to not to do these mistakes when choosing your accommodation. One of the most important mistakes is never choose a shared accommodation. It will be very challenging to share the common areas such as, the kitchen and the bathroom with others and also cause a significant inconvenience and discomfort. Additionally, I advice that you avoid taking the in-house laundry suites. These units may annoy you and disturb you while studying.

I hope these suggestions would help you and let me know your thoughts.

Best regards,

Raj Kumar

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 7.0

The response successfully addresses all three bullet points of the prompt. You described your past living situation, recommended specific platforms for finding housing, and provided warnings about common mistakes. The tone is appropriate for an email to a friend, and the purpose of the letter is clear throughout. The ideas are relevant and sufficiently developed to meet the requirements of the task. To reach a higher band, ensure that your advice is balanced; for instance, the warning against shared accommodation is a personal opinion that could be framed more as a subjective tip rather than a universal rule, but this does not detract from the overall task completion.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 7.0

The email is logically organized with clear paragraphing. Each paragraph focuses on one of the required points, which helps the reader follow your ideas easily. You use basic cohesive devices such as 'Firstly', 'Finally', and 'Additionally' to transition between points. While these are functional, the flow is somewhat mechanical. To improve, try to vary your linking words and use more sophisticated referencing (e.g., 'These platforms' instead of repeating 'These websites') to create a smoother, more natural progression between sentences and ideas.

Lexical Resource — Band 6.0

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, using words like 'elated', 'inconvenience', and 'discomfort' correctly. However, there are some minor inaccuracies in word choice and collocation. For example, you wrote 'provide you an advice' (advice is uncountable, so 'give you some advice' is better) and 'in-house laundry suites' (which is slightly unnatural in this context). Expanding your range to include more precise collocations related to housing would help elevate your score. Overall, the vocabulary is sufficient to communicate your message clearly without any confusion.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and complex sentence structures. There are several grammatical errors, such as 'Its been a while' (should be 'It's'), 'got an admission in MITS course' (should be 'got admission to the MITS course'), and 'warn you to not to do these mistakes' (should be 'warn you not to make these mistakes'). While these errors are noticeable, they do not impede communication. To improve, focus on subject-verb agreement and the correct use of articles and prepositions. Increasing the frequency of error-free complex sentences will help you achieve a higher band.

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

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