Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 13 · 2026-09-25

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 6.0)

Dear sir,

I hope you are doing well. I am writing this letter to express my disatisfaction on the meal that served during the company event last week.

Firstly, I would like to mention that overall experience was amazing in terms of organization, decoration and punchuality of the staff. Whereas, if I give the honest feedback on the food that has served, it was below my expactation. I got very common comments from my colleagues about the food was the taste. The Italian cuisine always with less spices and very mild spicy level but almost all the dishes had spicy level hot and that was spoiling overall experience.

I would like you to take this as a feedback and should work on it. Moreover, you can include the category of food preferences in the inquiry form. Thus, you can prepare the meal accordingly. Although, apart from lunch, I have experienced all your hospitality beyond my expectation.

Regards,

Apoorv

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.0

The response covers all three bullet points required by the prompt. You successfully mention what the participants liked about the hotel by noting the amazing overall experience, organization, decoration, and punctuality of the staff. You explain why they were unhappy about the food by highlighting the unexpected high spice level in Italian cuisine. Finally, you suggest improvements by advising the manager to take this as feedback and to include food preference categories in the inquiry form. The tone is appropriate for a formal letter to a manager. However, the introduction 'Dear sir' should be capitalized and follow the prompt's prescribed opening 'Dear Sir or Madam,'. Because you addressed the manager of a hotel whose name you likely did not know, it would have been safer to stick strictly to the requested greeting. Nonetheless, all parts of the task are addressed adequately, placing this response at Band 6.5, rounded to 6.0 due to slight under-development in the food explanation.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The letter exhibits a coherent overall arrangement with a clear paragraph-by-paragraph structure. Paragraph 1 introduces the purpose of the letter, Paragraph 2 addresses the positive aspects and the food issue, and Paragraph 3 outlines recommendations. Cohesive devices are used to link ideas, such as 'Firstly', 'Moreover', and 'Although'. However, some cohesive links feel slightly mechanical or are used awkwardly, such as 'Whereas, if I give the honest feedback...', which is grammatically disjointed and interrupts the logical flow. Paragraphing is used sufficiently to separate distinct ideas, but referencing is occasionally loose. Overall, the organization is clear enough to guide the reader through the letter without confusion, supporting a Band 6.5 performance.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You demonstrate an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, attempting some less common items such as 'organization', 'decoration', 'hospitality', and 'preferences'. However, there are notable spelling and word choice errors throughout the text. For example, 'disatisfaction' is misspelled (dissatisfaction), 'meal that served' lacks passive voice (meal that was served), 'punchuality' has a spelling error (punctuality), 'expactation' is misspelled (expectation), and the phrase 'spicy level hot' is unnatural. These errors do not impede overall communication because your meaning remains clear, but they prevent the lexical score from reaching Band 7. The vocabulary is minimally sufficient and attempts lexical variety, making Band 6.0 the most accurate descriptor.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 6.0

You use a mix of simple and complex sentence structures, incorporating clauses introduced by 'that', 'if', and 'although'. However, there are several grammatical errors that occur across the text. Examples include 'the meal that served' (missing auxiliary verb), 'the food that has served' (incorrect tense/voice), 'the food was the taste' (awkward clause integration), and 'Italian cuisine always with less spices' (missing verb). Punctuation is generally acceptable, and the sentence forms show some variety, but the frequency of grammatical inaccuracies in complex structures keeps the score at Band 6.0. The errors do not impede communication, but they demonstrate inconsistent control over more complex grammatical patterns.

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

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