You are going on a short course to a training college abroad. It is a college that you have not been to before. Write a letter to the accommodation officer. In your letter: - give details of your course and your arrival/departure date - explain your accommodation needs - ask for information about getting to and from the college
Sample Response
Dear Sir or MadamDear Sir/Madam, I am writing to inform you that I will be attending the Advanced Life Insurance course, being held from Tuesday 24th April tountil 27th April, at the University of Hartford. I will be arriving on the afternoon of Monday 23rd23th and will be leaving on the morning of Saturday 28th AprilSaturday the 28th of April, so I will require a single room for this periodtime. I would prefer my own bathroom, if this is possible, but do not mind sharing if I have to; however, as I am a wheelchair userwheelchair bound, the room will have to be wheelchair-accessibledisability friendly. Could you please tell me how much this will cost and how I should paymake a payment? Do you accept VisaVISA? As I do not know the area, I would also be grateful if you could provide some information about getting to and from the University. Will I need to take public transport from the station or is there a University bus service? Any information on what to see and do in the area would also be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your assistance. Yours faithfully, Alex JonesAlex Jones
Why this response received Band 8.0
The letter’s strongest feature is its thorough, practical coverage of the course dates, accessibility requirements, and transport questions in a courteous formal register. Its main limitations are very minor accuracy and style details, including the incorrect ordinal in the arrival date and a less natural term for accessible accommodation. The highest priority is a final proofread for small factual forms and polished formal conventions, including the closing.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response fully addresses the course and travel dates, detailed accommodation needs, and transport options while maintaining an appropriately courteous purpose.
Add a conventional formal sign-off and keep any extra local-information request secondary to the three required points.
Coherence and Cohesion
The letter moves clearly from course arrangements to room requirements and then transport questions, with cohesive links that make the sequence easy to follow.
Divide the main content into visible paragraphs aligned with the three requested areas to sharpen the structure further.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is precise and suitably formal across course, accommodation, payment, accessibility, and transport topics, despite an occasional less natural expression.
Prefer established terms such as accessible room over broader expressions such as disability friendly.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses a broad range of complex sentence forms accurately, with controlled punctuation and only isolated minor slips.
Proofread dates and compound modifiers carefully, correcting forms such as 23th and wheelchair bound before submission.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You are going on a short course to a training college abroad. It is a college that you have not been to before. Write a letter to the accommodation officer. In your letter:
- give details of your course and your arrival/departure date
- explain your accommodation needs
- ask for information about getting to and from the college
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.