You have recently moved to a different house, and you want to give the news to an English-speaking friend who lives in another country. Write a letter to this English-speaking friend. In your letter: - explain why you have moved - describe the new house - invite your friend to come and visit
Sample Response
Dear Charlotte, I'm writing to let you know that we've finally movedat last, we've moved to a bigger house! We just couldn't go on living in the two-bedroom bungalow now that the twins are growing up and the new baby has arrived. So we started looking - and one thing led to another and finally, here we're in our new home. I'm sure you'll like it. We have three bedrooms now and a very modern bathroom and kitchen. The kids are happy because there is more space with the big living room and the garden outside. But John is the happiest of us allthe happiest of all because he doesn't need to do much decorating. Why don't you come round this weekend and see what you think of our new place? We would all love to see you. If the weather is goodfavourable, we couldcan even have a barbecue in the garden. Our new address and phone number are below, so give us a call and let us know when to expect you. With lots of love, Julia
Why this response received Band 8.0
This is a warm, natural letter that fully explains the move, describes the new home, and extends a convincing invitation with relevant personal detail. Its main weakness is presentation: the ideas are delivered in one continuous block, and a few awkward constructions reduce polish. The highest priority is to divide the letter into purposeful paragraphs and refine isolated phrasing errors while preserving the friendly tone.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter fully achieves its purpose, covers all three bullet points, and develops them with convincing personal detail in an appropriate informal tone.
Make the invitation even more practical by suggesting a specific time and briefly indicating how the friend could reach the new home.
Coherence and Cohesion
The message progresses logically from the reason for moving to the house description and invitation, but the single-block presentation weakens paragraphing.
Use separate paragraphs for the reason, the description, and the invitation so each stage of the message is immediately clear.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied, natural, and well suited to a friendly letter, with effective phrases such as “one thing led to another” and “come round.”
Refine occasional imprecise combinations, such as “more space with the big living room,” to make the wording consistently exact.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A good range of simple and complex structures is used accurately, with only occasional awkwardness that does not impede meaning.
Correct isolated constructions such as “here we're in our new home” and vary sentence boundaries to improve grammatical polish.
Write this task while it is fresh
Try the same task now. It helps you remember the feedback and write better next time.
IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You have recently moved to a different house, and you want to give the news to an English-speaking friend who lives in another country. Write a letter to this English-speaking friend. In your letter:
- explain why you have moved
- describe the new house
- invite your friend to come and visit
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.