Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-09-14
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 Rohit,
hope you doing well, it is great you had offred a place in lovely university where i studied last three years. i overwhelmed when i know you need my advice to find a place to live near the university.
As you aware i am spend almost 3 years in same university and i have very good experience of university as well as accommodation which suited out side near the boundary wall of lovely university.
It is 2bhk room apartment me and me new student colleque live there, the accommodation surrounding arra is very calm amd it is good for doing study. Moreover my apartment landlord is very helpful. apartment is fully furnished & have wifi facility for students use & it is located in gated society. so you should stay in that apartment, i will call my landlord you are interested to live in that accommodation rental, in last there accommodation rent is in your budget.
One more thing i want to add is no one can go outside the apartment after 7pm because there is many thiefs in surrounding area. they theif & snatch students bikes and jewellery from hands. so that accommodation is perfect for you to live near the university.
Your Sincerely
Amandeep singh
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 6.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 5.5 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.0 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0
The candidate has successfully addressed all three bullet points of the task instructions. First, the writer describes where they lived ('It is 2bhk room apartment me and me new student colleque live there'). Second, a clear recommendation is provided for how to look for accommodation, specifically by offering to contact the landlord directly. Third, the writer warns the friend about potential mistakes and dangers, such as going outside after 7 pm due to thieves in the surrounding area. The tone is appropriately informal and friendly throughout. However, some ideas are slightly underdeveloped or expressed with repetitive descriptions. Overall, the content covers all parts of the prompt well, earning a solid Band 6.0.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.5
The email has a coherent overall arrangement, and the reader can easily follow the sequence of ideas from the greeting to the warning and sign-off. However, paragraphing is weak and unconventional for an email, with large chunks of text grouped together awkwardly. Cohesive devices are sometimes mechanical or faulty, such as 'in last there accommodation rent' and abrupt transitions between sentences. Referencing is occasionally unclear, such as pronoun shifts between 'me' and 'my apartment landlord'. The organization shows adequate progression overall, but the mechanical cohesion and poor paragraphing limit the score to a Band 5.5.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.0
The candidate demonstrates an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, successfully using terms like 'accommodation', 'fully furnished', 'gated society', and 'budget'. However, there are numerous lexical and spelling errors throughout the text, such as 'offred' instead of offered, 'colleque' instead of colleague, 'arra' instead of area, 'amd' instead of and, 'theif' instead of thief, and 'theifs' instead of thieves. While these errors do not completely impede communication because the context is clear, they are frequent enough to prevent the score from reaching Band 6.0. The lexical resource is best described at a Band 5.0 level.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The writer attempts a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but control over grammar and punctuation is consistently weak. There are frequent basic errors, including missing auxiliary verbs ('hope you doing well', 'it is great you had offred'), pronoun errors ('me and me new student colleque live there'), tense inconsistencies ('as you aware i am spend almost 3 years'), and run-on sentences with comma splices ('...located in gated society. so you should stay...'). Punctuation and capitalization are also erratic. These frequent errors cause some difficulty for the reader, fitting the Band 5.0 descriptors well.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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