Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 13 · 2026-08-08

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You recently organised an all-day meeting for your company, which took place in a local hotel. In their feedback, participants at the meeting said that they liked the hotel, but they were unhappy about the food that was served for lunch.

Write a letter to the manager of the hotel. In your letter

• say what the participants liked about the hotel
• explain why they were unhappy about the food
• suggest what the manager should do to improve the food in future

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Student answer (Band 5.0)

Dear sir

I am writing this letter to hotel manager, few complaints are my team member.

To be honest, your worker welcome was superb and my team happy, room services are top notch and no felt, window open and see nice view, you provided gym and pool facility are available in hotel.

However, only one thing was intrupted my team unhappy because you served food was very overcooked, please check your chef working skills. Me and my team unhappy this team.

As an advise, you hotel chef make a good and authentic dish so this type of complaint in future.

thank you, i hope you will work it

dear inder

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.5

The response fails to meet the minimum word count requirement of 150 words, which significantly impacts the development of the ideas. While all three bullet points are addressed—mentioning the hotel's facilities, the poor quality of the food, and a suggestion for improvement—the ideas are underdeveloped and lack the necessary detail expected in a formal letter. The tone is inconsistent, and the brevity prevents a full exploration of the task requirements. To improve, you must expand on your points with more descriptive language and provide a more professional structure to ensure the task is fully addressed.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The letter lacks a clear paragraph structure, which makes the flow of information disjointed. There is a lack of cohesive devices to link sentences and ideas together; for example, the transition between the positive aspects of the hotel and the complaints about the food is abrupt. The use of punctuation is also problematic, with many run-on sentences and missing commas, which hinders the reader's ability to follow your argument logically. To improve, use clear paragraph breaks for each point and incorporate linking words such as 'furthermore', 'consequently', or 'in addition' to connect your thoughts.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary is quite limited and repetitive, relying on basic words like 'happy', 'good', and 'nice'. There are several instances of awkward phrasing and incorrect word choices, such as 'no felt' and 'intrupted my team unhappy'. The lack of formal register is also a concern; for instance, 'your worker welcome was superb' is not appropriate for a formal complaint letter. To improve, focus on learning collocations and more precise adjectives to describe your experience, and ensure you use formal language suitable for a business context.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 4.5

There are frequent grammatical errors throughout the text, including issues with subject-verb agreement ('your hotel chef make'), missing articles, and incorrect tense usage. The sentence structures are mostly simple and often fragmented, lacking the complexity required for higher bands. Punctuation is also inconsistent, with many sentences lacking proper capitalization and ending marks. To improve, focus on mastering basic sentence construction, ensuring that every sentence has a clear subject and verb, and practice using more complex structures like relative clauses or conditional sentences.

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

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