Band 7.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 7.0 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-10-05

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

Write a letter to the local council. In your letter

• give details of how you and your friends or family use the centre
• explain why the sports and leisure centre is important for the local community
• describe the possible effects on local people if the centre closes

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Student answer (Band 7.0)

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to bring your attention towards possible drawbacks if the community centre closes in our neighbourhood.

Firstly, I have been using the community centre for the last three years with my family, and friends. We are playing badminton and table-tennis during the weekend. My children are visiting the centre for swimming and soccer class twice a week.

I believe this centre holds significant value to our residents. The sports and leisure centre keeps people healthy and motivated. People feel stress free and more relaxed after playing a sport. Our local children uses the centre more than others for soccer and cricket classes. The study published by the University of Ottawa suggested that children engaged in any physical activity has seen 25% faster brain development than others.

Our community centre is a focal point for our people, which have been living in our neighbourhood for last few decades. I believe people would be very unhappy and could loose motivation to stay fit, if our sports centre closes. The centre acts as a hub to meet friends and share happy moments with loved ones.

I would therfore request you to keep the community centre open. Should you require more details or information, I am happy to assist you further.

Yours faithfully,

Neel Desai

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.5

The response effectively addresses all parts of the task prompt, positioning the letter appropriately to the local council. You successfully covered how you and your family use the centre, such as playing badminton and swimming, and explained its importance for the community's health and wellness. Furthermore, you clearly described the potential negative effects of its closure, including a loss of motivation to stay fit and a decline in social connection. Your ideas are well-supported and extended, such as referencing the university study about brain development in active children. To achieve an even higher score, the personal examples could be woven with slightly more nuanced local context, avoiding minor tendencies to over-generalise points while maintaining your clear, persuasive tone throughout the letter.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 7.0

The letter demonstrates a clear logical organisation and progression throughout. You made good use of standard letter conventions by opening with the required greeting and transitioning smoothly into your purpose in the first paragraph. Each body paragraph focuses on a distinct theme: personal usage, community value with supporting evidence, and the consequences of closure. Cohesive devices are used adequately to guide the reader, such as 'Firstly', 'I believe', and 'Should you require'. Paragraphing is handled sufficiently. To push further towards higher bands, you could employ a more sophisticated variety of referencing and substitution across sentences, ensuring that cohesive links feel entirely natural rather than slightly formulaic at times.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.5

Your vocabulary range is adequate for the task, successfully conveying your message to the council. You attempted some less common vocabulary items with varying degrees of success, such as 'focal point', 'significant value', and 'motivation'. While communication is clear, there are occasional lexical inaccuracies and awkward word choices, such as writing 'loose' instead of 'lose', and phrasing like 'Our local children uses the centre'. To reach a higher lexical band, you would need to demonstrate greater precision and flexibility in word choice, incorporate more sophisticated collocations, and eliminate spelling slips entirely so that less common vocabulary is used with natural control.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

You displayed a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating control over several grammatical structures such as conditional forms ('Should you require...') and relative clauses ('which have been living...'). However, there are some noticeable errors in grammar and punctuation that prevent a higher rating. For example, there are subject-verb agreement issues ('Our local children uses', 'which have been living' referring to people), tense inconsistencies in narrative descriptions ('We are playing'), and a missing comma after the introductory linker ('I would therfore request'). While these errors rarely impede communication, improving your control over article usage, verb tense consistency, and subject-verb agreement will yield more error-free sentences.

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

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