You have stayed at a friend’s house last weekend and forgot your watch there. Write a letter to this friend. In your letter: - thank him/her for the hospitality - describe your watch and say where you could have left it - suggest a way how to get it back
Sample Response
Dear Dylan, I hope you are wellHope you are fine and enjoying the spring. I would like to thank you for a great weekend at your house. We had such a wonderful timeIt was so exciting that I will always be grateful to you for being such a great host. I hope you can visit us soon with your wife and son and I look forward to spending some quality time together. When I got back home, I realised that I had leftI noticed that I forgot my watch at your house. My best guess is that I left it in the bathroomI have left it in the bathroom. Before leaving your house I took a shower and presumably that was whenpresumably that is the time when I left it there. It is a Seiko automatic men's diving watchSeiko (Japan) Automatic diver's analogue watch for men that comes with a circular dial. The strap and dial of the watch are black while the lug, buckle and bezel are silver. I am sure you will recognise it as soon as you see it. I hope it would not be too much troublewould not be a trouble for you to send it to me. I really like this wristwatch and it was a gift from Maria. She would be disappointed if I lostlose it. Please send it via a courier service to my home address and I will bear the courier cost. I hope to see you all soonWish to see you all soon. Warm wishes, Peter
Why this response received Band 8.0
The letter communicates warmly and naturally, covers all three requirements in well-developed detail, and makes the watch easy to identify. Its main limitation is a small cluster of tense, article, and phrasing errors, together with limited visible paragraphing. The highest-priority improvement is to separate the thanks, description, and return request into clear paragraphs while polishing the few inaccurate verb forms.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All three bullet points are fully developed in a friendly, appropriate tone, with a clear description and a practical arrangement for returning the watch.
Keep the same complete coverage while trimming the invitation slightly so the request remains especially focused.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress naturally from thanks to the missing watch, its description, and the return request, with cohesive links used flexibly despite limited paragraphing.
Give each main communicative purpose its own paragraph to make the letter's structure immediately visible.
Lexical Resource
The response demonstrates flexible, precise vocabulary for hospitality, the watch's features, and delivery, with only a few slightly unnatural expressions.
Refine phrases such as 'would not be a trouble' to the more idiomatic 'would not be too much trouble'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of sentence forms is used accurately overall, though a few tense choices, articles, and sentence fragments remain.
Use past-perfect forms consistently for the forgotten watch and complete openings such as 'I hope you are well'.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You have stayed at a friend’s house last weekend and forgot your watch there. Write a letter to this friend. In your letter:
- thank him/her for the hospitality
- describe your watch and say where you could have left it
- suggest a way how to get it back
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.