You recently enjoyed a meal at a restaurant to celebrate a special occasion, and you were very pleased with the food and service. Write a letter to the restaurant manager. In your letter: - give details of your visit to the restaurant - mention the reason for the celebration - say what was good about the food and the service
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to express my appreciation for the meal and service that your restaurant provided for us last Sundayprovided us last Sunday on the occasion of my 21st birthday. Your restaurant is located near my office, and I took a few friends and colleagues to celebrate my birthday based on a recommendation from one of my colleagues. We had lunch at your establishment and the meal was fabulousit was fabulous. The experience made my birthday even more specialeven special, and I am quite thankful for excellent servicean auspicious service and delicious foodmenu. We were greeted warmlyproperly as soon asjust when we entered the restaurant, and surprisingly, the manager himself came overdown to us and arranged an excellent tablesitting place for us from whichwhere we enjoyed a great view. A waiter came to tantalize our taste buds explaining the details of the menu. We had the "Thai soup" to start with. It was served perfectlyserved just perfectly, and it smelled great. Then we opted for mackerel and fried rice which were well flavoured and had a decent portion of 4 fillets with each serving. For the main course, we had the lamb cutlets which were so tender that they melted in our mouthsmelted in our mouths tenderly and came with a delightfully spiced harissa sauce. I must say that your food made our day! We absolutely left with wonderful memoriestook away something truly special from this visit. Thank you once again for a fantastic experience at your establishment. We look forward to our next visitcan not wait until our next visit! Yours faithfully, Tom Chatfield
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter's strongest feature is its vivid, specific coverage of the birthday visit, with detailed praise for both the food and the service and an enthusiastic, appropriate tone. Its main limitation is that all ideas appear in one long paragraph, while several ambitious expressions sound forced. The highest-priority improvement is to create clear paragraph groups and choose more natural collocations for the service, seating, and dishes.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All three bullet points are fully developed with specific visit details, a clear celebration reason, and extensive praise for the food and service.
Keep the appreciation focused by trimming a little repetition near the conclusion while retaining the specific examples.
Coherence and Cohesion
The information follows a sensible chronological sequence, but the single extended paragraph weakens the clarity of the letter's organisation.
Separate the opening and visit context, service details, food details, and closing appreciation into distinct paragraphs.
Lexical Resource
The response shows broad vocabulary and vivid description, although several word combinations are inaccurate or over-elaborate.
Replace forced phrases such as 'auspicious service' and 'excellent sitting place' with natural alternatives such as 'excellent service' and 'comfortable table'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of complex sentence forms is used with generally clear meaning, despite several local errors in modification, punctuation, and phrasing.
Revise structures such as 'made my birthday even special' and the dangling modifier in 'tantalize our taste buds explaining' for cleaner accuracy.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You recently enjoyed a meal at a restaurant to celebrate a special occasion, and you were very pleased with the food and service. Write a letter to the restaurant manager. In your letter:
- give details of your visit to the restaurant
- mention the reason for the celebration
- say what was good about the food and the service
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.