An English-speaking friend wants to spend a two-week holiday in your region and has written asking for information and advice. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter: - offer to find somewhere to stay - give advice about what to do - give information about what clothes to bring
Sample Response
Dear Michael, Your sudden decision to visit Kuala Lumpur is a pleasant surprise to me, and as always,to me and as always, your letter was amusing to read. I am glad that you have been able to manage a two-week holidaya week-long vacation and I cannot wait to meet you. I would love to have you stay at my homehave you at my home for the full two weeksfor as long as you want. In fact, while you are in Kuala Lumpur, I would rather you stayed with me than at a hotelwould not let you stay at a hotel. I recommend that you visitrecommend you to visit the Bird Park, Aquaria KLCC, Genting Highlands, National Museum, Butterfly Park and ChinatownChina Town during your stay in the city. I will take you to the Petronas Towers, which was once the tallest building in the world. I also recommend tryingrecommend you to try the street food and do some shopping at the Central Market. Life is so vibrant and diverse in this city and I am sure you will enjoy it all. After you spend a few days in Kuala Lumpur, you should spend some time inat Penang and Langkawi. The formerWhile the formal is a state knownis a state and known as the Pearl of the Orient and my personal favourite, the latter is a district and an archipelago of 104 islands in the Andaman Sea. We have a hot and humid climate year-round, interspersed with tropical rain showers. The temperature is between 26 and 36 degrees Celsiusbetween 26-36-degree Celsius now and it rainswe have rains almost every day. Bring light clothingdresses suitable for summer and a raincoat because of the regular rainconsidering the regular rain. I cannot wait any longerCannot wait any longer to meet you in person. Warm wishes, Mahmud Riad
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter is lively, friendly, and rich in useful sightseeing and clothing advice. Its main limitation is task precision: it changes the planned holiday from two weeks to one, offers the writer’s own home rather than explicitly offering to find accommodation, and presents everything in one dense paragraph. Prioritise matching the prompt exactly and organising the three requested points into clear paragraphs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response addresses accommodation, activities, and clothing in an appropriate friendly tone, but it contradicts the stated holiday length and modifies the accommodation request.
Keep the visit at two weeks and explicitly offer to find accommodation, even if staying at the writer's home is also suggested.
Coherence and Cohesion
The content moves logically from accommodation to activities and clothing, but the single dense paragraph obscures that progression.
Create separate paragraphs for the welcome, accommodation, activities, clothing advice, and closing.
Lexical Resource
The letter uses varied, vivid vocabulary for attractions, climate, and travel, with a few inaccurate or unnatural word choices.
Correct choices such as “formal” to “former” and use natural expressions such as “light clothing” and “frequent rain.”
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
There is a good range of complex sentences, but errors in complementation, prepositions, agreement, and sentence structure occur noticeably.
Review patterns such as “recommend that you visit,” “spend time in,” and complete clauses with explicit subjects.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
An English-speaking friend wants to spend a two-week holiday in your region and has written asking for information and advice. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter:
- offer to find somewhere to stay
- give advice about what to do
- give information about what clothes to bring
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.