Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-10-14

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 6.0)

Dear Tom,

Hi! How're you? I hope you're doing great. I'm glad that you've got an oppotunity to study in a same university where I have finished my eduction and I'd love to guide you about finding good place to live.

When I was a student, I lived at a Greenhouse Building near Bay Street. This property is speacially built for students who look for living in a very comfortable community. This is a quite specious and peaceful area to live.

If you want to search a room for you in this building, you need to download an application named GPS Market. Before selecting any room, you can apply some filtters to get results as per preferences.

I'd like to inform you that don't make mistakes what did while choosing a perfect accommodation for me. Mostly students, only see the price but ignore other feature and facilities. You need be careful about giving rent in advance unless you're fully satisfied with the place.

I hope my advice will help you and let me know if you want to know further.

Good luck,

Priya

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

You address all three requested points: you describe living in Greenhouse Building near Bay Street, suggest using the GPS Market application and filters, and warn Tom not to focus only on price or pay rent before being satisfied. The advice is relevant and the friendly email tone suits the audience. However, some points are less fully developed than others. For example, the accommodation-search advice is limited to one app and does not explain how to check listings or compare options, while the warning could give a clearer example of other facilities or conditions to inspect. Adding a little practical detail to these points would make the response more complete.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The email has a clear overall arrangement: an opening, a paragraph about your former accommodation, advice on searching, a warning, and a friendly closing. This makes the message easy to follow, and phrases such as “When I was a student” and “Before selecting any room” help signal the sequence. The paragraphing is appropriate for an informal email. To make the progression more flexible and polished, connect the advice and warning more explicitly—for instance, explain how using the app can help Tom compare price, location, and facilities. Some transitions are quite basic, but the organisation is coherent and the reader can follow the main points without difficulty.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

You use enough vocabulary to communicate the accommodation advice, including “preferences,” “peaceful,” “facilities,” and “fully satisfied.” There are also attempts at more specific language, such as “student community” and “filters.” However, several spelling and word-choice errors reduce accuracy: “oppotunity,” “eduction,” “speacially,” “specious,” and “filtters.” In addition, “a comfortable community” and “search a room for you” are not natural collocations in this context. Aim for accurate, natural phrases such as “student residence,” “spacious and peaceful,” and “look for a room.” Proofreading spelling and checking common word combinations would make your vocabulary more effective.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You use a mix of simple and more complex sentence forms, including “Before selecting any room, you can apply…” and “unless you're fully satisfied with the place.” Most of the message remains understandable, but some grammatical errors occur. For example, “in a same university” needs an article and a different determiner, while “you need be careful” requires “to” after “need.” The sentence “I'd like to inform you that don't make mistakes what did while choosing…” has an unclear structure and missing grammatical elements; a clearer version would be “I’d like to warn you not to make the mistakes I made when choosing accommodation.” Check articles, infinitives, and sentence construction when revising.

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

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