Samples / Task 1 General letter / Semi formal letter / Band 7.5

GT Task 1 Letter: Letter to a Neighbour About Late-Night Noise

A practice letter to a neighbour addressing late-night noise issues, written to demonstrate a realistic Band 7 performance under exam conditions.

The question

A neighbour has been making a lot of noise late at night and it is affecting your sleep. Write a letter to your neighbour. In your letter: explain the problem, describe how it is affecting you, suggest what could be done about it. Begin your letter 'Dear ...'. You do not need to write any addresses.

Dear John, I am writing to you to bring an issue to your attention regarding the noise level coming from your apartment recently. Over the past two weeks, there have been very loud music and guitar playing coming from your living room late at night, usually between 11 pm and 1 am. This situation is affecting on my daily routine quite badly because I am unable to get a good night of sleep. As you may know, I have to wake up at 6 am every morning for my job as a school teacher. Because of the lack of sleep, I am finding it extremely difficult to concentrate on my work, and I feel completely exhausted during the day. I would really appreciate if we could find a solution to this. Perhaps you could try to finish your practice sessions earlier in the evening, say before 10 pm. Alternatively, using a pair of headphones while playing your electric guitar would be a wonderful way to solve this problem without stopping your music hobby. Thank you for your understanding, and I hope we can resolve this matter amicably. Best regards, Mark

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This answer was written by a language model to a real exam question, then scored by Bandly against the four public band descriptors. The band is a software estimate. No examiner has marked it, and the band a real examiner would award may differ. Scored with google/gemini-3.5-flash on 2026-09-08.

Estimated overall

7.5

Mean of the four criteria, rounded the way the exam rounds it.

Task Achievement 9

You fully satisfy all parts of the task with clear explanation, impact, and practical suggestions, so Task Achievement is at band 9.

Coherence and Cohesion 7

The response logically organises information and ideas with clear progression, but the use of cohesive devices, while appropriate, is not particularly varied or sophisticated.

Lexical Resource 6

You use an adequate range of vocabulary for the task, but occasional inaccuracies in word choice and word formation prevent a higher score.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy 7

The response uses a variety of complex structures and produces frequent error-free sentences, but a few errors in grammar and punctuation prevent a higher score.

What would take this higher

To improve your lexical resource score to a band 7, you should focus on eliminating minor collocated errors such as "affecting on my daily routine" and "good night of sleep". Replacing these with more natural phrasing like "affecting my daily routine" and "good night's sleep" will demonstrate a more precise control of word choice. Consistently using such natural collocations and precise vocabulary throughout your letter would help elevate this specific area.

Find out what this essay would score

Paste your own answer and Bandly returns an estimated band for each of the four criteria, with the sentences that pulled the score down. Under a cent an essay, about six seconds.

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