Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 11 · 2026-09-15

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 this letter to inform you about my interest in joining an AI app developer course. As my position in office demands an upgradation in technology field, i would like to participate in this training course.

I would like you to grant me one month period leave for my course. I really appreciate if you fully sponsor my course fees and accommodation. Not only it assist me financially, but also fosters trust on this enterprise.

This course will be helpful in our upcoming project name “AI Support Policies” owing to that it provides detailed data of our clientele in minutes. It reduces manpower for a single project and saves our time.

Yours faithfully.

Boom Bamm

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.0

The student covers all parts of the prompt by describing the AI app developer training course, explaining how the company could help (one month of leave and course fee/accommodation sponsorship), and stating how the course will be useful for the upcoming project. However, the response falls short of the required 150-word minimum, containing only 121 words. Because of this under-length penalty, the task cannot be fully developed, leading to a restricted score. To achieve a higher band, the student must expand their ideas regarding the benefits of the course and meet the word count requirement.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter follows a logical paragraph structure, addressing one prompt requirement per paragraph. The student uses basic cohesive devices such as 'owing to that' and 'Not only it assist me'. However, paragraphing is somewhat abrupt, and referencing is occasionally faulty, such as the missing auxiliary verb in 'Not only it assist me'. Overall, the organisation is coherent enough to guide the reader through the letter, but the logical progression and cohesive ties lack flexibility and control.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

The student attempts some less common vocabulary, such as 'upgradation', 'sponsorship', and 'clientele'. However, some word choices are unnatural or inaccurate, such as 'upgradation in technology field' (upgrade in the technological field) and 'demands an upgradation'. Additionally, there are minor phrasing issues like 'project name “AI Support Policies”'. The vocabulary range is adequate for a basic workplace request, but frequent collocation and word-choice inaccuracies limit the score to a 5.5.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

The student demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, such as 'I would like you to grant me one month period leave' and 'Not only it assist me financially, but also fosters trust on this enterprise.' There are notable grammatical errors, including missing articles ('in office', 'for one month period leave'), incorrect subject-verb inversion with negative fronting ('Not only does it assist me'), and a lowercase 'i'. These errors cause some disruption, though communication is not severely impeded.

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

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