Your local council is considering closing a sports and leisure centre that it runs, in order to save money. Write a letter to the local council. In your letter: - give details of how you and your friends or family use the centre - explain why the sports and leisure centre is important for the local community - describe the possible effects on local people if the centre closes
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am a resident of Alperton, Londonthe Alperton, London area, writing to request you to reconsider your decision to close the sport and leisure centre we have in our community. I am hoping that you would consider the value of this centreweigh the utility of this centre before shutting it down. As you know, we have more than 8 thousand members in our community and only two such leisure and sporting centres. When we are expecting another recreational centre for the benefit of the community members, the decision to shut down the 'Innercircle Sports & Leisure Centre' was some shocking news for us. My father and II and my father use this centrego to this place to do our daily exercise. Besides, I have noticed many children play there in the evening and local people spend a significant amount of time there. Many teenagers have chosen this place to play some indoor games and spend quality time. If this place is closed, people would feel dejected and I personally worry that the teenagers who use this centre would get involved in antisocialsubversive activities. This is not at all accepted. If reducing costscutting the cost is the only reason to close this centre, I am sure there are alternatives. I have talked to several other members and all of them are against closing this place. Please do reconsider your decision for the benefitbetterment of our community. Yours faithfully, Patrick Stuart
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter addresses the council directly, covers every requested point with relevant community examples, and maintains a suitably formal, persuasive purpose. Its main limitation is that the entire response is presented as one block, while several unnatural expressions weaken precision. Divide the ideas into clear paragraphs and replace awkward collocations with more natural formal wording.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose is clear, all three bullet points are covered, and the effects of closure are developed with relevant examples.
Develop the proposed cost-saving alternatives more concretely to make the request even more persuasive.
Coherence and Cohesion
The ideas progress logically from the request to the centre's use, community value, and likely effects, but the single-block presentation weakens organisation.
Use separate paragraphs for the purpose, current uses, community importance, and consequences of closure.
Lexical Resource
A sufficiently flexible range, including terms such as recreational, dejected, and betterment, conveys the message effectively despite some awkward collocations.
Replace phrases such as was some shocking news and this is not at all accepted with natural formal alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A variety of complex structures is generally controlled, and the few grammatical errors do not impede communication.
Refine article use, word order, and subject forms, especially in phrases such as a resident of the Alperton and I and my father.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
Your local council is considering closing a sports and leisure centre that it runs, in order to save money. Write a letter to the local council. In your letter:
- give details of how you and your friends or family use the centre
- explain why the sports and leisure centre is important for the local community
- describe the possible effects on local people if the centre closes
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.