Band 4.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 4.5 · Cambridge IELTS 16 · 2026-10-25

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 4.5)

Dear Sama, i am writng to help you out understand how crutial it is to locate a good place to live while you are studying at university of sassari, as its one of the big steps of your life you need to take every step very wisely, when i lived there while my studies i needed a space for myself not just for the sake of edcuation and accomodation purpose but also because it was a new chapter of my life and i needed it to feel like home to me so that i could focus more on myself and my education, i lived at this place where i had a room in sharing with two other guys who were on there vacation at the moment so it was only myself in the room for the first 40 45 days this accomodation was owned by three men out of which two lived in the same place not in the same room obviously

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 3.0

You begin in a friendly, relevant way and give some personal detail about your student accommodation, including sharing a room and the owners’ living arrangements. However, the response does not fulfil the main purpose of the email: it gives no clear recommendation for how Sama should search for accommodation and no warning about mistakes to avoid. The description of your own housing is also difficult to follow and does not explain clearly where it was or what made it suitable. As a result, the task is addressed only partially and the ideas remain limited and under-developed. To improve, cover each bullet point explicitly: describe your location and experience, recommend practical search methods, and give specific cautions such as checking the contract or visiting before paying.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 4.0

The opening establishes the recipient and topic, and the response stays broadly focused on student accommodation. However, nearly all the information is placed in one long sentence, so the reader has difficulty identifying where one idea ends and another begins. The sequence moves from the importance of housing to your personal needs and then to the room and its owners, without clear transitions or paragraphing. Some links, such as “so that I could focus more,” show a basic attempt to connect cause and purpose, but the overall progression is not clear. Use separate paragraphs for your experience, your recommendation, and your warning, and connect each point with straightforward transitions such as “When I was there” and “To find a place, I suggest…”

Lexical Resource: Band 5.0

You use some vocabulary relevant to the topic, including “accommodation,” “university,” “studying,” and “a new chapter of my life.” The phrase “feel like home” also communicates a personal reason for choosing a place. However, the range is limited, and several spelling errors make the writing less clear, including “writng,” “crutial,” “edcuation,” and “accomodation.” Some expressions are awkward or imprecise, such as “a space for myself” and “a room in sharing,” which do not sound natural in this context. Aim for accurate, conventional housing vocabulary and collocations, for example “a room in a shared apartment,” “search for accommodation,” and “check the rental terms.” Proofreading spelling would also make your meaning easier to follow.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.0

You attempt to express several connected ideas using clauses, for example explaining that you wanted a home-like place “so that I could focus more on myself and my education.” This shows an effort to use more than short, simple sentences. However, the response relies heavily on one extended sentence joined by commas, and the sentence structure becomes difficult to control. There are also errors in forms and sentence construction, such as “when i lived there while my studies,” “who were on there vacation,” and “out of which two lived.” Capitalisation and punctuation are inconsistent, particularly the lowercase “i” and the missing full stops. Break the ideas into shorter sentences, use complete clauses, and check pronouns and verb patterns before submitting.

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

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