Your neighbours have a dog that is noisy at night. You can’t sleep due to this. Write a letter to your neighbours. In your letter: - describe the problem with the dog - explain why it is important for you to sleep outline - what your neighbours could do about the situation
Sample Response
Dear Mr and Mrs Donald, I am Beth Scarlet, your next-door neighbour, writing to express my concern about the noise your dog makes at night. I had intended to writeI intended to write to you a few days ago but waited patiently with the hope that the dog would stop barking loudly at night and save mewould stop barking loudly at night and will save me from writing what might sound like a complainta letter that sounds like a complaint letter. I hope that you can resolveI am hoping that you would resolve the issue. For more than a week, your dogFor more than a week your dog has been yelping loudlyaloud at night and I have no idea why.I have no idea why! Just when I send my daughter to her bed, who is a school-goer and try to close my eyes, I can hear the deafening noise and this deters me from falling asleep. I have to get up before 6:00 a.m.6.00 am to prepare breakfast for my family, then take my daughter to schooltake my daughter to her school and finally drive to workdrive to my office. Interrupted or insufficient sleepInterrupted sleep or lack of sound sleep leaves me dizzy the next day and this affects my performance at workhurts my performance in my office. You are great neighbours in every aspect and I am sure you will understand how stressful this isfeel my stress regarding this. I do not own a pet and cannot say exactly what should be donecannot advise you what should be done but I guess taking the dog to a veterinarianspecialist might be a good idea. Yours sincerely, Beth Scarlet
Why this response received Band 7.0
The response’s strongest feature is clear, courteous task coverage: it describes the persistent barking, explains the effect of poor sleep on family and work, and proposes professional help for the dog. Its main limitation is sentence control and the limited specificity of the remedy, with one heavily tangled sentence and several awkward phrases. Prioritise a direct, actionable request supported by shorter, more controlled paragraphs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter addresses all three bullet points in relevant detail and balances a clear complaint with a respectful neighbourly tone and a plausible suggestion.
Ask the neighbours explicitly to keep the dog indoors at night or seek professional advice by a stated date so the requested action is unambiguous.
Coherence and Cohesion
The content progresses sensibly from the complaint to its effects and a solution, but the one-block format and some long sentences blur the stages of the request.
Use separate paragraphs for the barking problem, the need for sleep and the proposed action, with one main point per sentence.
Lexical Resource
There is a useful range of complaint vocabulary, including “deafening noise,” “interrupted sleep” and “performance,” but phrases such as “yelping aloud” and “feel my stress” are unnatural.
Prefer natural expressions such as “barking loudly,” “understand my concern” and “affects my performance at work.”
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The letter attempts varied complex structures, but tense consistency, relative-clause attachment and coordination errors are noticeable and occasionally strain readability.
Rewrite the sentence beginning “Just when” with the daughter reference separated, and keep past intentions and expected outcomes in consistent tense forms.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
Your neighbours have a dog that is noisy at night. You can’t sleep due to this. Write a letter to your neighbours. In your letter:
- describe the problem with the dog
- explain why it is important for you to sleep outline
- what your neighbours could do about the situation
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.