You have seen an advertisement in an English newspaper for a job working in the City Museum shop during the holidays. You decide to apply for the job. Write a letter to the director of the Museum. In your letter: - introduce yourself - explain what experience and special skills you have - explain why you are interested in the job
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam,Dear Sir/Madam,
My name is Hannah Eastwood. I am a 26-year-old womana 26 years old female from Nottingham. I readcame across your advertisement in The Sunthe Sun newspaper and would like to applyand want to apply for the temporary cashier position at the City Museum shopat City Museum Shop.
I have three years’ experience3 years experience in customer serviceworking in the customer service sector. I workedused to work as a cashier at an ASDA store for two2 years and as a shop assistantstore helper for a year. I have excellent interpersonal skills as well as strong numerical skillsquick calculation ability. I believe my skills and experience make me a strong candidate for this positioncan make me a good fit for this position.
I am interested in this job because I am a regular visitor to the museumregular visitor of the Museum and I would love to challenge myself by workingchallenge myself working in a new environment. I also appreciate the pay rate and benefits that this position can offer.
Thank you for your consideration and I am looking forward to hearing back from you. Yours faithfullysincerely,
Why this response received Band 7.0
The application is clearly organised, uses an appropriate formal tone, and covers the applicant’s background, relevant experience, skills, and motivation. Its main limitation is that several phrases are grammatically or collocationally awkward, while the reasons for wanting the role remain fairly general; improving noun phrases and verb patterns and adding one more job-specific reason would make the candidacy sound more natural and persuasive.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter clearly applies for the advertised role and addresses the introduction, relevant experience and skills, and reasons for interest in an appropriate tone.
Develop the motivation further by connecting the applicant’s interest in the museum to a specific contribution they could make in its shop.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response follows a clear progression from introduction to qualifications, motivation, and closing, with well-focused paragraphs.
Separate the closing formula from the final body sentence to make the letter’s structure more polished.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is varied and relevant to an application, although a few combinations such as “quick calculation ability” sound unnatural.
Use more idiomatic professional collocations, such as “strong numerical skills” and “well suited to the position”.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses a useful mix of sentence structures with generally good control, despite several noticeable noun-phrase and verb-pattern errors.
Correct forms such as “a 26-year-old woman”, “three years’ experience”, and “challenge myself by working” or “to work”.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You have seen an advertisement in an English newspaper for a job working in the City Museum shop during the holidays. You decide to apply for the job. Write a letter to the director of the Museum. In your letter:
- introduce yourself
- explain what experience and special skills you have
- explain why you are interested in the job
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.