You work for an international company, and would like to spend six months working in its head office in another country. Write a letter to your manager. In your letter: - explain why you want to work in the company’s head office for six months - say how your work could be done while you are away - ask for his/her help in arranging it
Sample Response
Dear Mr Jacob, I am writing this letter to inform you about my desire to work in our company’s head office in Amsterdam for about six months. Recently, our company has announced an extensive training programme on the techniques of developing new accounting software for mid-sizedsize business firms, and I would like to take advantage of this opportunityavail this opportunity. Our company now develops such software for only small firms at our local office and soon we will need to target large business entities. The training programme is to be held at our head office from 10 Julyfrom 10th of the next July. I would also like to add here that this particular training programme may prove to beprove out to be quite important for a software development team leader like me in guiding junior team membersshowing the way to the junior team members and managing larger projects in the future. I have already talked to my project manager to help my team members carry on their routine work without disruptionwithout any hurdles, and he assured me that he would step in to cover my responsibilitiesjump in to fill the void within the team in my absence. So, it would be great if you could arrange my temporary placementarrange for my transfer so that I can join the training programme and introduce new ideas to our teambring innovations to our team. Yours sincerely, John Andrew
Why this response received Band 7.5
The letter presents a clear, persuasive professional request and develops the training rationale, work-cover arrangement, and requested managerial action with relevant detail. Its main limitation is that several awkward collocations and an overextended sentence weaken precision and ease of reading. The highest-priority improvement is to use more natural business English and break dense explanations into shorter, better-controlled sentences.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose and formal register are clear, and all three bullet points are fully addressed with convincing workplace detail.
Specify the exact six-month period and practical transfer arrangements to make the request even more actionable for the manager.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically from the training opportunity and its benefits to work coverage and the final request for assistance.
Divide the lengthy explanation of the training benefits into shorter sentences so the central reasoning is easier to follow.
Lexical Resource
The response uses a broad range of relevant professional vocabulary, although several collocations are imprecise or non-idiomatic.
Replace expressions such as “avail this opportunity,” “prove out to be,” and “bring innovations” with natural business-English alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of complex forms conveys the message clearly, but long clause chains and occasional prepositional or structural errors reduce control.
Simplify heavily embedded sentences and proofread date and verb constructions, such as “from 10th of the next July” and “may prove out to be.”
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You work for an international company, and would like to spend six months working in its head office in another country. Write a letter to your manager. In your letter:
- explain why you want to work in the company’s head office for six months
- say how your work could be done while you are away
- ask for his/her help in arranging it
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.