Your English-speaking friend has asked for your help with a college project he/she is doing about celebrating New Year in different countries. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter: - say how important New Year is to people in your country - describe how New Year is celebrated in your country - explain what you like about New Year celebrations in your country
Sample Response
Dear Leslie,
I was delighted to receiveI'm so delighted to receive your letter telling me aboutletter in which you've informed me about a college project on "New Year celebrations"on "the New Year celebration" in a country other than yoursin a different country than yours. I'll share some information that I believe will help you complete the project.
To explainTo give you some details of the importance of New Year to peopleimportance of the New Year to the people in my country, I'd like to mention that New Year is perhaps the mostthis is perhaps the most celebrated event in my country, where peoplemy country where people from all walks of life come together with renewed hope, motivation and joy. They look forward to the upcoming year with new fervour, and most of them have a New Year's resolutionsome kind of New Year resolution that they take seriously.
On New Year's Eve, people exchange greetings and messages and wear their best clotheswear the best dresses. They greet each other and share fond memories with their loved oneswith dear ones. They also have lively street parties and fireworks that light up the skyfireworks that lighten the sky until it is as bright as daylike bright daylight. Bright sky lanterns, mostly red, are a common sight.
Personally, I like the way people greet each other on that day which brings them together. I also love the fact that they meet their loved ones, and they gain fresh inspirationall of them harness new inspirations to do better in the coming year, whichcoming year which is especially meaningful to mereally inspiring for me.
I hope this will help you complete your project. If you need more informationIn case you need more information, I am always here to help.
Best wishes,
Grace
Why this response received Band 7.5
The letter fully supports the friend’s project with a warm, appropriate tone and well-developed coverage of New Year’s importance, common celebrations, and the writer’s personal enjoyment. Its strongest feature is the clear paragraphing around the three requested points. The main opportunity is refinement: reduce repeated ideas about inspiration and togetherness, and replace a few awkward expressions with more natural descriptions of traditions and personal feelings.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All three bullet points are fully and relevantly developed in a consistently suitable informal register.
Add one country-specific tradition or food to make the project information even more distinctive and concrete.
Coherence and Cohesion
Paragraphing maps clearly onto the purpose and bullet points, with smooth progression from importance to celebration and personal preference.
Trim repeated references to renewed inspiration so the final personal paragraph remains concise and focused.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and expressive, with occasional unnatural phrases such as ‘wear the best dresses’ and ‘harness new inspirations’.
Use natural alternatives such as ‘dress in their finest clothes’, ‘make resolutions’, and ‘feel inspired for the year ahead’.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A broad range of structures is generally well controlled, with minor issues in relative-clause reference, repetition, and sentence length.
Shorten the final long sentence and ensure each relative clause clearly modifies the intended event or action.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
Your English-speaking friend has asked for your help with a college project he/she is doing about celebrating New Year in different countries. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter:
- say how important New Year is to people in your country
- describe how New Year is celebrated in your country
- explain what you like about New Year celebrations in your country
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.