You have learned from a news article that a real estate company is going to build a shopping centre near your home. However, you think that the shopping centre should not be built there. Write a letter to the city counsellor. In your letter: - say how you have learned about the plan - explain how it is going to negatively affect the residential area - where you live - say what you think the city council should do about it
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am a resident of Woodley in Berkshire, and I am writingI have decided to write this letter after reading a recent news article about the plan to build a shopping centre in our residential area. DeleteNeedless to say, we strongly oppose this proposalwe do not really like this idea, and I hope that you willwould take the necessary stepsinitiatives to halt this project, whichhalt this project which would otherwise disrupt the residents’ peaceful livespeaceful lives of the residents.
Our residential area is already overpopulatedover-populated, with insufficient road and parking capacitywith not enough streets and parking spaces. Of course, the shopping centre will have its own parking spaces, but sometimes, those parking spaces just might not be enough to accommodate all the cars. If that is the caseAnd if that is the case, the mall visitors would most likely parkmost likely would park their cars on our streets and in our parking spacesin our streets and parking spaces, making our streets even more crowded. The commotions, businesses and people would make our peaceful residential area worse to live in.
Another problem is that our residential area has a sizable population of college and university studentsa sizable, college and university-going, young population who, most likely, might spend too much timewould start wasting their time in the shopping centre in the name of socializing and having fun, instead of focusing on their studies.
These are just some of the possible negative effects, but I hope they will persuade you to relocatethey should be good enough to convince you to relocate this shopping centre to a commercial area, away from residential areasaway from any residential areas.
Thank you in advance.
Yours faithfully,
Keith Marshall
Why this response received Band 7.5
The letter is purposefully structured, identifies the writer's location and source of information, and supports the objection with developed examples before proposing relocation. Its main limitation is occasional imprecise or overstated wording, especially in the discussion of noise, businesses, and students, which slightly weakens the persuasiveness of an otherwise clear case. The highest-priority improvement is to express the anticipated impacts with more precise, neutral language and evidence-based reasoning.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All requested points are fully addressed in a suitably formal letter, with clear objections, developed consequences, and a direct recommendation to relocate the centre.
Strengthen the case further by replacing the speculative claim about students with a more objective impact on traffic, noise, or local services.
Coherence and Cohesion
Paragraphing is purposeful, ideas progress logically from context to two effects and a proposed solution, and referencing is consistently clear.
Create an even tighter progression by linking the final recommendation explicitly to the traffic and disturbance discussed earlier.
Lexical Resource
The response demonstrates a broad range of topic-appropriate vocabulary, but choices such as "commotions," "businesses," and "worse to live in" are imprecise or awkward.
Use precise formal alternatives such as "noise and congestion," "commercial activity," and "a less pleasant place to live".
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentences are frequent and mostly well controlled, with minor punctuation and phrasing issues that do not impede meaning.
Remove unnecessary commas around modifiers and refine conditional structures to make the argument more consistently polished.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You have learned from a news article that a real estate company is going to build a shopping centre near your home. However, you think that the shopping centre should not be built there. Write a letter to the city counsellor. In your letter:
- say how you have learned about the plan
- explain how it is going to negatively affect the residential area
- where you live
- say what you think the city council should do about it
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.