You celebrated your birthday with some friends last week in a restaurant. It was a great success and you and your friends enjoyed the evening very much. Write a letter to the restaurant. In your letter: - thank the restaurant for the successful evening - mention the food, service and atmosphere - suggest improvements that could make things better
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am one of your regular customers and celebrated my birthday at your restaurant last week. I would like to thank you for the wonderful hospitality and delicious food which made the ceremony worth enjoyable. I must mention that all the arrangements were made perfectly and thanks to you and your professional staff. We enjoyed the scrumptious food served to us including both vegetarian and non-vegetarian. Moreover, I am impressed with the politeness and the prompt service of your staff. The background lighting was superb and the music selection was amazing, and they added more to the ambience of the party hall. I would like to make some suggestions to make it the restaurant of the town. The plants around the driveway need more attention. They are not in a very appealing state! In addition to that, some crockery items have slight cracks and need to be replaced. Thank you once again for making my birthday a success. Yours faithfully, Mark Nielsen
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Fix adjective structure Original: ceremony worth enjoyable Suggested revision: celebration especially enjoyable Why it matters: Worth cannot directly modify enjoyable, and celebration is the appropriate word for a birthday event.
- 2. Complete the categories Original: including both vegetarian and non-vegetarian Suggested revision: including both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes Why it matters: The adjectives vegetarian and non-vegetarian need a noun to identify what was served.
- 3. Keep past tense Original: am Suggested revision: was Why it matters: The impression refers to the completed birthday celebration last week.
- 4. Use precise verb Original: added more to the ambience Suggested revision: enhanced the ambience Why it matters: Enhanced expresses the positive effect on the atmosphere more naturally and concisely.
- 5. Use natural expression Original: make it the restaurant of the town Suggested revision: make it one of the best restaurants in town Why it matters: The original phrase is not an established way to describe a leading local restaurant.
- 6. Keep formal tone Original: appealing state! Suggested revision: appealing condition. Why it matters: Condition is the natural noun for plants, and a full stop maintains the letter's formal tone.
- 7. Use concise transition Original: In addition to that Suggested revision: In addition Why it matters: The shorter transition links the second improvement smoothly without unnecessary wording.
- 8. Use uncountable noun Original: some crockery items Suggested revision: some pieces of crockery Why it matters: Crockery is uncountable, so individual objects are described as pieces.
- 9. Set off relative clause Original: delicious food which made Suggested revision: delicious food, which made Why it matters: The non-defining relative clause adds information about the whole preceding phrase and requires a comma.
- 10. Use natural phrasing Original: food served to us Suggested revision: food we were served Why it matters: The passive relative construction sounds more natural in this account of the meal.
- 11. Tighten staff praise Original: the politeness and the prompt service of your staff Suggested revision: your staff's politeness and prompt service Why it matters: The possessive structure is more concise and avoids repeating the definite article.
- 12. Keep formal praise Original: amazing Suggested revision: excellent Why it matters: Excellent maintains warm praise in a slightly more formal register.
Suggested Rewrites
- ceremony worth enjoyable celebration especially enjoyable
- including both vegetarian and non-vegetarian including both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes
- am was
- added more to the ambience enhanced the ambience
- make it the restaurant of the town make it one of the best restaurants in town
- appealing state! appealing condition.
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter fully addresses the successful evening, comments specifically on the food, service and atmosphere, and offers two practical improvements in an appropriately appreciative tone. Its main limitation is uneven language control, with awkward phrases such as 'worth enjoyable' and occasional tense or reference problems. Prioritize clearer sentence construction and divide the thanks, praise and suggestions into distinct body paragraphs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose is immediately clear, all three bullet points are well developed, and the formal appreciative tone is consistently suitable.
Make each improvement explicitly constructive by briefly stating how attention to the plants and crockery would enhance future visits.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically from thanks to detailed praise and then suggestions, although the single-block presentation and a few loose references reduce polish.
Use separate body paragraphs for the positive feedback and the proposed improvements, with one clear focus in each.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and generally precise, including 'hospitality,' 'scrumptious,' 'prompt service,' 'ambience,' and 'crockery,' despite several awkward collocations.
Replace unnatural phrases such as 'worth enjoyable' and 'restaurant of the town' with concise idiomatic alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses a good range of sentence forms, but recurring errors in complementation, tense consistency, ellipsis and pronoun reference remain noticeable.
Proofread verb patterns and noun phrases, especially 'made the evening enjoyable,' 'vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes,' and consistent past tense.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You celebrated your birthday with some friends last week in a restaurant. It was a great success and you and your friends enjoyed the evening very much. Write a letter to the restaurant. In your letter:
- thank the restaurant for the successful evening
- mention the food, service and atmosphere
- suggest improvements that could make things better
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.