You are organising a family party. Write a letter to your friend inviting him/her to attend the party. In your letter: - explain why you are organising the party - say why you want your friend to come to the party - describe what you are planning to do.

Same questionCompare 2 different answers (Band 6.5–8.5)

Sample Response

1

Dear Julie, Some exciting news. Helen is getting engaged. We’re having a big party and I’m writing to invite you to join uswriting to invite you along. It’s on Saturday 25th July at our place, starting at 2 p.m. Can you believe it, our little girl all grown up and getting married? Josh, her fiancéfiancée, is a lovely young man and will make a wonderful husband. Helen will be so thrilled to introduce you to him. She often says how much she misses you since you moved away. You were like an aunt to her when she was young and gave her so much good advice that she would never listen to coming from her parents. Anyway, we’ve decided on a hog roast for the party and have booked a jazz band to play during the afternoon and again in the evening. Hopefully, the weather will be fine and we can be outdoors for most of the time, butmost of the time but we’ll have a marquee in case of rain and when it gets coolerand for when it gets cooler later in the day. We hope to see you in July. All the best, Jacky

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 8.5

The letter is warm, engaging, and fully communicates the reason for the party, the personal importance of Julie's attendance, and the planned arrangements. Its main weakness is a small number of awkward or inaccurate expressions in an otherwise fluent response; the highest-priority improvement is to proofread carefully for precise word choice and cleaner sentence boundaries.

Band score breakdown

IELTS Writing Criteria Scores

TA

Task Achievement

9.0
Scoring rule

The invitation fully achieves its purpose, develops every bullet point, and maintains a consistently suitable informal tone.

Next step

Retain this complete coverage while making the closing invitation slightly more direct and personal.

CC

Coherence and Cohesion

8.0
Scoring rule

Ideas progress naturally from the announcement and personal motivation to the party arrangements, with cohesive links used smoothly.

Next step

Use clear paragraph breaks to separate the invitation, the reason Julie matters, and the practical plans.

LR

Lexical Resource

8.0
Scoring rule

Vocabulary is varied, natural, and well suited to a friendly invitation, with only an isolated word-choice slip.

Next step

Check precise forms such as the masculine noun “fiancé” when referring to Josh.

GRA

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

8.0
Scoring rule

A wide range of sentence structures is handled accurately, and the few awkward constructions do not impede communication.

Next step

Polish sentence boundaries and recast the awkward clause about advice from Helen's parents.

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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1

You are organising a family party. Write a letter to your friend inviting him/her to attend the party. In your letter:

- explain why you are organising the party

- say why you want your friend to come to the party

- describe what you are planning to do.

Your response

Words0
20:00

Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.