One of your friends has asked you to be a partner in his/her new business. Write a letter to reply to your friend's offer. In your letter: - give your opinion of your friend's business idea - tell him/her whether or not you have decided to accept the - offer and explain your reasons for this decision
Sample Response
Dear Smith, It is great to hear from youIt is a pleasure to be in touch with you after a long timeafter a long. I hope you are doing well. I am so excited to hear that you are finally pursuing a dream you have had for a long time:a long - owningowing and running your own business. My best wishes will always be with you. Your idea to start a motorcycle dealershipmotorbike showroom in Ghansoli is excellentquite excellent and timely. This area does not have any such showroomsdoes not have such showrooms and I have seen many people travelling 30 to 40 km to buy a motorcycle. They also visit the nearby town to get motorcyclemotorbike parts. Your business will tap into this market and I am quite positive would be a success. I believe opening a motorcycle showroom in Ghansoli is a very good idea and you can expect good returns on investment. Thanks for asking me to join you as a partner, but I am afraid I will not be able to accepthave to decline. I have my reasonsreason for this decision, and I have taken enoughadequate time to reachdetermine it. I will be staying in Canada for a year to manage a sales team. This is a good career opportunity, and I cannot give it upleave it as it is a one-time offer. Moreover, all the arrangements have already been made and backing out nowcancelling it would hurt my career progress. I wish you good luck with your new venture and look forward to seeingmeeting you soon. Warm regards, Holmes
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter fully addresses the offer, gives a persuasive evaluation of the showroom idea, and explains the decision to decline with relevant personal detail. Its main weakness is language precision: several awkward or incomplete expressions slightly reduce polish, while the lack of visible paragraphing makes the progression less easy to scan. Prioritise natural collocations and divide the response into clear purpose, evaluation, decision, and closing paragraphs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response fulfils the purpose, evaluates the business idea convincingly, and clearly explains the decision to decline.
Make the refusal even more direct at the start of its section before developing the reasons.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically from greeting and evaluation to the refusal and its justification, but the response lacks clear paragraph divisions.
Use separate paragraphs for the business opinion, the decision and reasons, and the closing.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and generally precise, with effective business language, although several collocations are awkward.
Replace unnatural expressions such as "after a long" and "taken adequate time to determine it" with idiomatic alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A good range of complex structures is used accurately overall, with a few local errors that do not impede meaning.
Proofread for omitted subjects and malformed phrases, particularly in "I am quite positive would be a success" and "owing and running".
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
One of your friends has asked you to be a partner in his/her new business. Write a letter to reply to your friend's offer. In your letter:
- give your opinion of your friend's business idea
- tell him/her whether or not you have decided to accept the
- offer and explain your reasons for this decision
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.