Band 6.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 6.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-10-28

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You have just read an article in an international travel magazine which contained some information about your town that is incorrect.

Write a letter to the editor of the magazine. In your letter

• correct the information in the article
• explain why it is important for the magazine to give correct information
• suggest what the magazine should do about this situation

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Student answer (Band 6.5)

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing to you on the information I read in the latest revision of your journal article last week. The journal article about Portharcourt is not true. I would like to explain why I feel, the information is incorrect.

To begin with, criminal activities is common in every big city and not peculiar to Portharcourt alone. There are other good things about Portharcourt which can be sold out to the public. My town Portharcourt is called treasure base of the nation, Nigeira, because of its wealth in the oil and gas industries, where many experts travel from different part of the world to work and go home safely.

Moreso, My town is popularly known as the garden city of the nation, because of its beautiful culture and landscape. I will also add that, It is very essential for journals to give actual information to the public, and not to destroy a town with negative assumptions. Foreigners and tourist can read wrong information about a town, and limit their visit, because of information they were not sure, if its true or wrong.

Conclusively, I will advice that, you retreive and correct the wrong article, by rewriting the true picture about my town in next month edition of your magazene.

Yours faithfully,

Sotonye Davids

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response: Band 7.0

You address all three requirements and maintain a clear purpose: you challenge the article, explain the possible harm of inaccurate reporting, and ask the magazine to correct its coverage. The details about Portharcourt’s oil and gas industry and its “garden city” reputation give the correction some support. Your explanation that tourists may limit their visits is relevant, although the importance of accuracy could be developed further by explaining how readers rely on travel information when making plans. The requested action—retrieving and correcting the article in the next edition—is clear, but you could also suggest checking facts with local sources before publication. Overall, the response is complete and supported, though some points are generalised rather than fully explained.

Coherence and Cohesion: Band 6.5

The letter has a recognisable progression: you introduce the complaint, provide corrective information, explain why accuracy matters, and finish with a proposed remedy. Paragraphing helps separate these stages, and signposts such as “To begin with” and “Conclusively” make the sequence easy to follow. This gives the response a coherent overall arrangement. However, some linking is mechanical, and the shift from crime to the town’s economic and cultural qualities could be made more explicit. The phrase “Moreso” also begins a new point without a clear connection to the previous paragraph. To strengthen cohesion, group related corrections together and use more natural transitions that show how each point supports your request.

Lexical Resource: Band 6.0

You use an adequate range for a formal complaint, including topic-specific expressions such as “criminal activities,” “oil and gas industries,” “landscape,” and “negative assumptions.” These help communicate the town’s positive features and the potential consequences of inaccurate reporting. You also attempt more formal vocabulary, but some choices or collocations are inaccurate or unnatural: “latest revision” and “journal article” do not fit the magazine context well, while “sold out to the public” does not express your intended meaning. Spelling errors such as “Nigeira,” “retreive,” and “magazene” are noticeable, though the message remains understandable. Aim for precise, natural phrases and proofread spelling carefully.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy: Band 5.5

You attempt both simple and more complex sentence forms, including a relative clause in “because of its wealth in the oil and gas industries, where many experts travel…” and a conditional explanation about tourists limiting their visits. The main ideas are generally understandable, but some grammatical errors remain and occasionally make sentences awkward. For example, “criminal activities is common” has a subject–verb agreement error, and “I feel, the information is incorrect” uses punctuation that interrupts the clause. In “because of information they were not sure, if its true or wrong,” the clause structure and punctuation are faulty. Review agreement, clause boundaries, and sentence punctuation, then check each sentence aloud for a complete, natural structure.

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

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