Band 6.0 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.0 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-10-06

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You have seen an advertisement in an Australian magazine for someone to live with a family for six months and look after their six-year-old child.

Write a letter to the parents. In your letter

• explain why you would like the job
• give details of why you would be a suitable person to employ
• say how you would spend your free time while you are in Australia

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Student answer (Band 6.0)

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to request a job that I have seen in Australian magazine. The advertisement contains someone live with your family for six months for look after your six year old child. I am interesting in living with your family and look after your child.

I would like this job because I enjoy spending time with children. It helps me spend time with your child and explore Australian culture. I could also learn your local language which helps me improve my communication and cooperation skills. I think these skills would help me in my future career.

I believe this job would be suitable for me as I am hard working, honest and supportive person. I also good at communicating with people through my nursing profession. As I have an experience in child health care nursing, I can understand you child tentrums, and help them stay calm and feel relieved.

I would spend my free time in Austraila by playing with your child. It helps his reduce stress and improve mood. I can also visit different tourist attractions, which give me an opportunity to meet new people and learn different cultures.

I look forward to your positive response soon.

Yours faithfully,

Khushbu Patel

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 6.5

The response successfully covers all parts of the prompt, addressing why you want the job, your suitability through your nursing background, and how you would spend your free time. The ideas presented are relevant to the task requirements, fulfilling the criteria for a generally complete response. However, some aspects are more fully developed than others, preventing a higher evaluation. For instance, the explanation of how you would spend your free time in Australia mentions exploring tourist attractions and playing with the child, but these ideas remain somewhat limited and under-developed, lacking specific detail about your broader personal plans or interests during a six-month stay. Furthermore, the opening contains slight irrelevancies, such as 'I am writing to request a job that I have seen in Australian magazine', which affects the overall focus. To move further, all bullet points would need to be extended with fully elaborated ideas and more precise justifications throughout the letter.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The letter maintains a coherent overall arrangement with clear paragraphing, devoting distinct paragraphs to each part of the prompt, such as your reasons for applying, your professional background, and your free time plans. Ideas are generally ordered logically so the reader can follow your intentions easily. However, cohesion is sometimes mechanical or faulty. For example, referencing is not always clear, as seen in the sentence 'It helps me spend time with your child and explore Australian culture', where the pronoun 'It' lacks a clear antecedent. Additionally, transitional phrases between sentences are occasionally repetitive, relying heavily on simple conjunctions and subject-verb patterns rather than flexible cohesive devices. To achieve a higher band, the transitions between sentences need to be smoother and referencing should consistently point back to clear, precise ideas without ambiguity.

Lexical Resource: Band 5.5

An adequate range of vocabulary is deployed for the task, successfully conveying your core message about wanting to work as an au pair and utilise your nursing background. You attempt less common vocabulary items such as 'cooperation skills', 'nursing profession', and 'tourist attractions'. However, there are noticeable inaccuracies in word choice, word form, and collocation. For instance, writing 'request a job that I have seen in Australian magazine' contains a missing article before 'Australian', and 'I am interesting' uses the incorrect adjective form instead of 'interested'. Other phrasing issues include 'help his reduce stress', where 'his' is a pronoun error, and 'child tentrums', which misses the possessive apostrophe. These spelling and word-choice errors do not impede overall communication, but they restrict the lexical score because control over less common lexical items remains inconsistent. Strengthening word forms and collocations will greatly improve this area.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

The response features a mix of simple and complex sentence forms, demonstrating an attempt at structures like subordinate clauses in 'I believe this job would be suitable for me as I am hard working...'. There are several correct simple sentences and some error-free clauses, showing that you can control basic grammar. Nevertheless, a number of errors in grammar and punctuation persist throughout the text. Preposition and article usage within grammatical patterns are particularly problematic, such as 'for look after' instead of 'to look after', and missing articles in 'in Australian magazine'. Other structural slips include 'As I have an experience', where 'experience' is incorrectly treated as a countable noun with an indefinite article, and tense inconsistencies. These errors rarely impede communication, placing the writing firmly in the mid-range. To progress, you should focus on mastering complex sentence structures, ensuring accurate verb complementation, and polishing articles and prepositions.

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