You have a foreign friend planning to visit and have decided to write a letter to them in advance of their arrival to check that everything is ok in advance of their trip. In your letter include the following: - Explain why you are writing - Explain the schedule for your friend’s stay in your country - Wish your friend a safe journey It is not necessary to use any addresses.
Sample Response
Dear John,Dear John
I hope you and your family areHope you and your family are wellfine and in good health. I am eagerlyanxiously waiting to meet you all. I'm writingThe purpose of this letter is to ensure that you have everything in place before you arriveprior to coming here.
Please make sure that you and all your family membersfamily members’ have a visa valid for one monthone month visa validity for Qatar and that your passports have at least six months’ validityat least six months validity.
I also suggest that you bringsuggest you to bring your driver’s licence with youdriver’s license along, which willwould enable you to rent a car and drive, if you choose to.
There is no need to bringcarry any warm clothing, as it’s pretty hot, even at this time of the year.
Since you would be landing at 3pm, and I would be at work, hire a taxi and go directly to the address I mentioned in my earlier letter. My mother willwould be at home and will welcome you all. I will join you all shortly.
Wish you and your family a safe trip.
Best wishes,Sincerely Yours
Ali
Why this response received Band 6.5
The letter communicates practical arrival advice clearly and uses a useful range of sentence structures and travel-related vocabulary. Its main limitation is that it gives only an arrival arrangement rather than a schedule for the friend's stay, while the register also shifts between friendly and formal; the highest-priority improvement is to outline planned activities across the visit in a consistently informal tone.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose and safe-journey wish are clear, but the requested schedule for the stay is largely replaced by preparations and arrival instructions.
Add a developed itinerary covering several stages or activities during the visit and maintain a naturally friendly tone throughout.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information progresses logically from preparations to arrival arrangements, although frequent short paragraphs make the organisation slightly fragmented.
Group closely related travel preparations into fuller paragraphs and use transitions to clarify the sequence of the visit.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is sufficiently varied and precise for travel arrangements, despite several awkward collocations and word choices.
Use more natural combinations such as advise you to bring, a visa valid for one month, and warm clothes.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A mix of simple and complex sentences communicates meaning clearly, with occasional errors in possession, verb patterns, and punctuation.
Review possessive forms and verb complementation, especially constructions such as suggest that you bring or advise you to bring.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You have a foreign friend planning to visit and have decided to write a letter to them in advance of their arrival to check that everything is ok in advance of their trip. In your letter include the following:
- Explain why you are writing
- Explain the schedule for your friend’s stay in your country
- Wish your friend a safe journey
It is not necessary to use any addresses.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.