Band 5.5 IELTS Writing Task 1 Model Answer

Overall Band Score: 5.5 · Cambridge IELTS 14 · 2026-08-06

IELTS Writing Task 1 question

You recently did a short cookery course. The cookery school has asked for your feedback on this course. Write a letter to the course director at the cookery school. In your letter

• describe what you enjoyed about the course
• say how much cooking you've done since the course
• suggest another cookery course you’d like the school to offer

You do NOT need to write any addresses.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear Sir or Madam,

Student answer (Band 5.5)

Dear Sir,

I am writing this letter to share my experience with you about my cookery course that I recently completed at your cookery school.

I joined the course two months ago for improve my cookery skills. The thing that I enjoyed during the course that was the friendly nature of staff. They taught me every difficult task in funny way.

Apart from that, I had done too many cooking while learning the recipes of each dish as it is my favourite. I was quite good at making desert during the course even I won the desert making competition after completing cookery course.

However, I want to suggest cookery school that they should buy more utensil because when I was pursuing the course there were limited container or resources. It was difficult to complete task with time due to shortage of resources.

I hope you look into my review

Your faithfully,

Atul saini

AI examiner evaluation

Task Achievement / Task Response — Band 5.5

You have addressed all three bullet points required by the prompt: describing what you enjoyed, mentioning your cooking frequency, and suggesting a new course. However, the development of these ideas is somewhat limited. For instance, while you mention enjoying the 'friendly nature of staff,' you could have provided a specific example of a lesson or interaction to better illustrate this. Similarly, the suggestion for a new course is missing; you instead provided feedback on equipment, which does not fulfill the third bullet point of the instructions. To improve, ensure you explicitly address every part of the prompt with sufficient detail.

Coherence and Cohesion — Band 6.0

The letter follows a logical structure with a clear opening and closing. You use some basic cohesive devices such as 'Apart from that' and 'However' to transition between ideas. However, the paragraphing is inconsistent, and some sentences feel disjointed. The flow could be improved by using a wider variety of linking words and ensuring that each paragraph focuses on a single, well-developed idea. The referencing is generally clear, but the overall progression of the letter is somewhat mechanical.

Lexical Resource — Band 5.5

Your vocabulary is generally adequate for the task, allowing you to communicate your experience clearly. You use some topic-specific words like 'cookery school,' 'recipes,' and 'dish.' However, there are some inaccuracies in word choice, such as 'funny way' (should be 'fun way') and 'desert' (which refers to a dry region; the correct spelling for the food is 'dessert'). To reach a higher band, try to incorporate more precise adjectives and collocations to describe your experience, rather than relying on basic descriptors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy — Band 5.5

You demonstrate a mix of simple and some complex sentence structures. However, there are frequent grammatical errors that occasionally distract the reader. Examples include 'for improve my cookery skills' (should be 'to improve'), 'I had done too many cooking' (should be 'I have done a lot of cooking'), and 'buy more utensil' (should be 'utensils'). Additionally, there are issues with article usage and verb tense consistency. Focusing on subject-verb agreement and the correct use of prepositions will help improve your accuracy significantly.

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.