Band 5.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.0 · Cambridge IELTS 13 · 2026-09-12

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 or Madam,

Subject: Feedback on an event held at your hotel.

I am writing this letter to provide feedback on an event held on 12 June at your hotel. I would like to infom you that my all colleagues liked your hotel. They were praising about the facilities such as car parking and music system of hall. Everything was good but my colleagues were disappointed with the food quality and taste. Further, the food was not cooked properly even, it was too oily.

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 4.5

The student has attempted to cover all three bullet points from the prompt by mentioning what the participants liked about the hotel, explaining why they were unhappy about the food, and offering feedback. However, the third bullet point regarding suggestions on what the manager should do to improve the food in the future is entirely missing. Furthermore, the response is severely under-length, containing only 85 words against the required 150-word minimum. This results in inadequate development of ideas and directly impacts the task achievement score, pulling it down to Band 4.5.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 5.0

The letter follows a conventional format and includes a clear opening salutation and subject line. However, the overall organisation is severely limited due to the extremely short text length. The response consists of just one very brief body paragraph following the introduction, meaning paragraphing is not used effectively to structure distinct ideas. Cohesive devices are minimal, relying mostly on basic transition words like 'Further' and 'but'. Referencing and logical progression are difficult to evaluate fully given the brevity of the writing, leading to a Band 5.0 score.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.0

The vocabulary used is relatively basic and repetitive, such as 'feedback', 'event', 'hotel', and 'food'. There is a spelling error ('infom' instead of 'inform') and awkward phrasing like 'my all colleagues' instead of 'all my colleagues' and 'They were praising about' instead of 'They praised'. While the vocabulary is minimally adequate to convey the basic message, it lacks the range, precision, and flexibility required for higher bands. Therefore, a Band 5.0 is appropriate for this criterion.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.0

The student demonstrates control over simple sentence structures, such as 'I am writing this letter to provide feedback' and 'Everything was good'. However, attempts at slightly more complex structures contain noticeable errors, such as 'even, it was too oily' and 'The food was not cooked properly even, it was too oily', showing awkward punctuation and clause placement. While the errors do not completely obscure meaning, they occur frequently relative to the short length of the text. This aligns with the Band 5.0 descriptors.

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

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