Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 13 · 2026-08-10

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 5.5)

Dear hotel manger,

i hope you are doing well.

Recently i booked a one huge table to organized my company meeting over there. i invited my all colleague for a meeting and we really like your hotel interior , services and and the way how your staff did greeting to your customer. i really appreciate your effort.

on the other hand , we ordered few dishes and we really enjoyed some of them but my friends did not much like your foods because we felt that in your menu we did not find variety of dishes .moreover, your food is spicy and sour than usual limit so, it can not convinence for every individuals.overall, we are litttle bit dissapointed regarding your cuisine.

in the end , i would like to suggest ,you should add some unique or food in your menu list and you can try some combination also.

Thank you for your consideration

your faithful coustmer

dharati patel

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 6.0

The response covers all three bullet points required by the prompt. You successfully identified what was liked about the hotel (interior, services, staff greeting), explained the dissatisfaction with the food (lack of variety, excessive spice/acidity), and provided a suggestion for improvement. However, the development of these points is somewhat basic. For instance, the suggestion to 'add some unique or food' is vague and lacks the professional tone expected in a formal letter. To reach a higher band, ensure that your suggestions are more specific and clearly articulated to demonstrate a more sophisticated approach to the task requirements.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter is organised into logical paragraphs, which helps the reader follow your argument. You use some basic cohesive devices such as 'on the other hand', 'moreover', and 'in the end'. However, the flow between sentences is sometimes mechanical, and there are issues with punctuation and capitalization that disrupt the cohesion. For example, the transition between the positive feedback and the complaints could be smoother. Improving your use of linking words and ensuring consistent paragraphing will help your ideas progress more naturally, which is essential for higher band scores.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

Your vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, but it is quite limited and contains several errors in word choice and collocation. Phrases like 'one huge table to organized' and 'did not much like your foods' are unnatural. You also use 'convinence' incorrectly, likely intending to mean 'convenient' or 'suitable'. While you attempt to express your thoughts clearly, the lack of precision in your word choice prevents you from achieving a higher score. Expanding your range of descriptive adjectives and learning common collocations related to hospitality would significantly improve your writing.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

There are frequent grammatical errors throughout the letter, including issues with subject-verb agreement ('my friends did not much like'), article usage, and verb tense consistency ('to organized'). Punctuation is also inconsistent, with missing spaces after commas and incorrect capitalization of 'i'. While you use some complex sentence structures, they are often marred by these errors. To improve, focus on basic sentence construction and proofreading for common slips such as capitalization and pluralization. Reducing the frequency of these errors is necessary to move into the higher band categories.

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

Browse more IELTS Writing model answers or get your own writing scored by the same AI examiner.