Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-08-17

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You work for an international company. You have seen an advertisement for a training course which will be useful for your job.

Write a letter to your manager. In your letter

• describe the training course you want to do
• explain what the company could do to help you
• say how the course will be useful for your job

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to show my keen interest to join the training course advertised by your company recently. As an international employee, I am always enthusiastic to learn the skills regarding AI development .

However, due to geographical barriar and time zone i would like to ask you for providing me virtual classes or recorded session along with the one-to-one querry session to clear my doubts. As becoming a part of this course would allow me to upgrade my knowledge and skills which are essential for getting promotions. Moreover, it will enhance my confidence to lead my team and come with uniqe idea which will ultimately benifits the company branch based in my contry.

looking forward to hereing from you promptly.

Yours Faithfully,

abc

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The response addresses all three bullet points: describing the course, requesting company support, and explaining the benefits. However, the letter is significantly under the 150-word minimum, which limits the development of ideas. The description of the course is quite vague, and the explanation of how the company can help is brief. To improve, you should expand on the specific content of the AI course and provide more detailed reasoning regarding how the skills gained will specifically impact your current role or projects. The under-length nature of the response prevents it from reaching a higher band.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter follows a logical structure, beginning with the purpose of the email and moving through the required points. However, the paragraphing is insufficient; the entire body of the letter is compressed into one block, which hinders readability. While some cohesive devices like 'Moreover' and 'However' are used, the flow is somewhat mechanical. To improve, ensure you use clear paragraph breaks for each new point and vary your transition words to create a more natural, professional flow between your ideas.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, but there are several spelling errors, such as 'barriar' (barrier), 'querry' (query), 'uniqe' (unique), 'benifits' (benefits), 'contry' (country), and 'hereing' (hearing). These errors are frequent enough to be noticeable. While you attempt to use topic-specific vocabulary like 'AI development' and 'virtual classes', the range is limited. To achieve a higher score, focus on accuracy in spelling and try to incorporate more sophisticated collocations related to professional development and business communication.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The response contains a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, but there are persistent grammatical errors. For example, 'I am writing to show my keen interest to join' should be 'in joining', and 'come with uniqe idea' lacks an article and pluralization. Additionally, 'due to geographical barriar and time zone i would like to ask you for providing me' is clunky and grammatically imprecise. While the meaning is generally clear, the frequency of errors in basic sentence construction and punctuation limits the score.

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

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