Your family is going to move to another town. Write a letter to the Principal of a local school. In your letter: - ask whether the school will accept your son - describe his academic achievements - describe his interests
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing this letter to seek your kind permission for the admission of my son to your school in grade eight. This is becauseAnd the reason for asking this is that my whole family, including my son, will be moving tointo your town next June. Therefore,So, naturally, my son will not be able to continue at his current schoolcontinue in his old school. I understand thatBy the way, I have already learned a great deal about your school and understand that it maintainsas to how it always sticks to its policies of maintaining very high educational standardsa very high educational standard, and how it gets involved with the community members and parents so that they Delete(community members and parents) can always support their children’s progresskeep an eye on their children. As for my sonAnd as for my son, he is a high-achieving studenttop-class student with a strong enthusiasm for learninga very keen mind for learning. Last year he scored 95% in his Grade 6 final examinationsgrade six final exams. Over the years, he has been an active member of a debate club in his school. In additionOn top of that, he also has also been a memberused to be a regular member of his school's football team. So, based on my son’s credentials above, I would like to request you to offer my son admission tointo your school. Thank you in advance for your consideration. Yours faithfully, David Garfield
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter communicates its formal purpose clearly and supports the admission request with relevant evidence about the son's academic record and extracurricular interests. Its main weakness is a wordy, partly irrelevant discussion of the school's reputation, alongside mechanical transitions and limited paragraphing. Focus on organising the three requested points into distinct paragraphs and expressing each one more directly.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The admission request, academic achievement, and interests are all addressed clearly in an appropriately formal letter.
Replace the lengthy general praise of the school with more precise information about the son's suitability and current educational situation.
Coherence and Cohesion
The information progresses logically, but the single body paragraph and repeated sentence-initial linkers make the organisation feel mechanical.
Group the reason for writing, academic record, and interests into separate paragraphs with subtler transitions.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a sufficiently varied formal vocabulary, though some phrases are wordy or not fully idiomatic.
Prefer concise collocations such as apply for admission and maintain high academic standards.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of simple and complex sentences is handled accurately overall, with only occasional awkward constructions.
Reduce chains introduced by And or So and recast the long sentence about school policies for cleaner grammatical control.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
Your family is going to move to another town. Write a letter to the Principal of a local school. In your letter:
- ask whether the school will accept your son
- describe his academic achievements
- describe his interests
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.