Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer
Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 12 · 2026-09-17
IELTS Writing Task 1 question
A large company in your area has decided to spend a certain amount of money, either to sponsor a local children's sports team for two years, or to pay for two open-air concerts. It has asked for feedback from the general public.
Write a letter to the company. In your letter
- describe the benefits of sponsoring the sports team
- summarise the benefits of paying for the concerts
- say how you think the company should spend the money
You do NOT need to write any addresses.
Begin your letter as follows:
Dear Sir or Madam,
Student answer (Band 5.5)
Dear sir,
I am writing to share my view point about advantages of sports event. Firstly, sports can help today's generation to stay healthy as well as they can look forward for their future. youngsters can get opportunity to play in a team, which will enhance them leadership quality and coopration strategy.
In addition to this, open air concerts will helpful for the local shop vendors in order to increase their business. Another reason is concerts are a source of entainment and build stronger relationship in between local community. This is a chance to attract tourism, which can be helpful for the development of the city.
In my opinion, your company should spend money on the sports event, this is because it will last long for two years as compare to open air concerts. Moreover, it will be helpful to develop youngsters physical and mental health.
Thank you for your consideration,
AI examiner evaluation
| Criterion | Band |
|---|---|
| Task Achievement / Task Response | 6.0 |
| Coherence and Cohesion | 6.0 |
| Lexical Resource | 5.5 |
| Grammatical Range and Accuracy | 5.0 |
| Overall | 5.5 |
Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0
The response covers all three bullet points required by the prompt. First, the writer describes the benefits of sponsoring the sports team, noting that sports help youngsters stay healthy, build leadership qualities, and learn cooperation strategies. Second, the response summarises the benefits of paying for concerts, explaining how they help local vendors increase business, provide entertainment, strengthen community relationships, and attract tourism. Finally, the writer states a clear opinion that the company should spend money on the sports event because it lasts longer and promotes health. All parts of the task are addressed with relevant ideas, though the points could be slightly more extended. Overall, the performance aligns well with Band 6 descriptors for Task Achievement.
Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0
The letter maintains a coherent overall arrangement with a clear paragraph structure separating the introduction, the discussion of concerts, the personal recommendation, and the sign-off. The writer uses basic cohesive devices and transition signals such as 'Firstly', 'In addition to this', 'Another reason', and 'Moreover' to guide the reader through the text. However, some referencing is slightly awkward, such as 'sports event' used interchangeably with a sports team, and paragraphing could be finer. Logical progression is present, but cohesion at times feels a bit mechanical. This places the response comfortably at Band 6.
Lexical Resource — Band 5.5
The vocabulary used is adequate for the task, allowing the writer to communicate their ideas clearly. There are attempts to use less common or topic-specific vocabulary, such as 'generation', 'cooperation strategy', 'tourisms', and 'physical and mental health'. However, there are noticeable word choice and collocation inaccuracies, including 'share my view point about advantages of sports event' (instead of 'views on the advantages of sports events') and 'source of entainment' (spelling error). Furthermore, 'tourisms' is incorrectly pluralised in this context. Because the errors do not impede overall communication, the response achieves a Band 5.5.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0
The response demonstrates a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, for example, using relative clauses ('which will enhance them leadership quality') and conditional-style reasoning. However, there are frequent grammatical errors and awkward phrasing throughout the text. Examples include 'Dear sir' (capitalisation/punctuation), 'help today's generation to stay healthy as well as they can look forward for their future' (clunky syntax), 'enhance them leadership quality' (incorrect pronoun case and pluralisation of uncountable/singular structure), 'concerts will helpful' (missing verb), and 'as compare to' (incorrect preposition). These errors require some effort from the reader to untangle, which points clearly to a Band 5.0.
See this exact question answered at other band scores — the same prompt compared across bands.
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