You are organising a trip to the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales for a group of students from Perth in Western Australia. Write to the manager of Student Hostel Services. In your letter explain: - when you want to visit the Snowy Mountains - how long you will stay - how many students are in your group and what accommodation you will require
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am Rona Olivar and we spoke by phone last weekI had a phone conversation with you last week. I am organizing a group of students from Perth Elementary School to the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales for a study tour. As a student adviser, I am writing to you regarding some information we need to reserve your hostel. Firstly, we will be visiting the Snowy Mountainsthe mountains on Saturday, 25 April25th April, next Saturday. My students and II and my students will be staying in your hostel for seven days because we will be taking an extended educational tripconducting a long educational trip in the Snowy Mountainsthose snowy mountains. The groupSecondly, the group has twenty people in total, including metwenty members in total including me. We will therefore needSo we will need at least eight8 rooms to accommodate us. We are looking for something cheap and expecting a discount from you. I would like to know if you can provide us with the required accommodation at your hostel and if so, how I can reserve it. I am looking forward to your prompt responseimmediate attention regardingwith regards to these questionsmy queries. Yours faithfully, Rona Olivar
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter clearly states the visit date, seven-day duration, group size and need for eight affordable rooms, so the hostel manager receives all essential booking information. The formal purpose and request are consistently clear, and the follow-up question about reserving the rooms is useful. The main limitation is language naturalness, with several awkward request and travel phrases. Prioritize accurate professional collocations and smoother sentence structures.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All required details are fully covered, including the date, length of stay, number of travellers, room requirement and booking request.
Specify the preferred room arrangement, such as twin or shared rooms, to make the accommodation request more precise.
Coherence and Cohesion
The letter progresses logically from trip context to timing, group details and the final reservation query, although the single-block format reduces readability.
Use separate paragraphs for the trip schedule, accommodation needs, and price and reservation questions.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is adequate for a formal hostel enquiry, but phrases such as 'conducting a long educational trip' and 'immediate attention' sound unnatural.
Use direct combinations such as 'taking part in a study tour', 'budget accommodation' and 'a prompt response'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of sentence forms communicates the request, but pronoun order, article use and preposition patterns contain noticeable errors.
Correct forms such as 'my students and I', 'information needed to book' and 'with regard to my questions'.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You are organising a trip to the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales for a group of students from Perth in Western Australia. Write to the manager of Student Hostel Services. In your letter explain:
- when you want to visit the Snowy Mountains
- how long you will stay
- how many students are in your group and what accommodation you will require
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.