You attended an interview with a company but are still waiting for the result. Write a letter to the manager of the HR department requesting information. In your letter: - describe the position you applied for - explain why you think the interview went well - explain why you need the result of the interview
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam,
My name is Jamie Ferguson, and I am writing this letter to enquire about the outcome of my job interviewstatus of my job application and interview.
I applied for the position of management traineeposition of Management Trainee at your company, and my interview took place on 1414th March. Unfortunately, I have not yet received a decisionhave not got any decision yet from your end, even though I was told that the human resourcesresource department would inform me of its hiring decisioninform me about a hiring decision on me within aone week of the interview.
I am also contacting youcontacting you also because I thought that I performed very welldid excellent in the interview. During the interviewAfter all, four people interviewedquizzed me for almost 30 minutes, yetand yet, I did not stumble oncenever stumbled for once. At the end of my interview, they even told me that they were very impressed with my performance.
I need to know the result of this interview because I will have to decide whether to renewdecide on whether or not to renew my apartment lease within the next week or move to another area. If I am selected for the job, I will renew the rental lease.
ThereforeSo, I hope that you understand the urgency of my situation and be kind enough to let me know its decision regarding my applicationlet me know about a hiring decision on me at your earliest convenience.
Yours faithfully,
Jamie Ferguson
Why this response received Band 7.5
The letter addresses the request directly, covers all three points with specific supporting details, and maintains a suitably formal tone throughout. Its main limitation is a cluster of awkward collocations and phrasing that slightly reduces precision, so the highest-priority improvement is to replace expressions such as those about receiving a decision and interview performance with more natural professional English.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose is immediately clear, all three bullet points are fully developed, and the formal register suits an HR manager.
Make the practical connection between receiving the result and renewing the apartment lease slightly more explicit.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information is organised into focused paragraphs that progress naturally from the application to the interview, personal urgency, and request.
Tighten the final request to avoid repeating the idea of receiving a hiring decision.
Lexical Resource
A strong range of relevant professional vocabulary is used, although several collocations such as ‘decision on me’ and ‘did excellent’ are unnatural.
Use more idiomatic combinations, such as ‘receive a decision on my application’ and ‘performed well in the interview’.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A varied range of complex sentence forms is handled accurately, with only occasional non-impeding errors.
Check adjective-adverb choices and preposition patterns in phrases such as ‘did excellent’ and ‘decide on whether’.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You attended an interview with a company but are still waiting for the result. Write a letter to the manager of the HR department requesting information. In your letter:
- describe the position you applied for
- explain why you think the interview went well
- explain why you need the result of the interview
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.