You have recently purchased a gift item for one of your friends. Write a letter to this friend. In your letter: - tell him/her about the gift - tell how you want to send the gift to this friend - explain why you chose this gift for your friend
Sample Response
Dear Niro, I hopeDear Niro, Hope you're in good health and spiritsspirit. I felt so happy to receive your letter last week. Anyway, you'll be glad to know that I've bought a nice gift for you—a wristwatcha nice gift, actually, a wristwatch for you during my visit to Switzerlandwhen I went to visit Switzerland a couple of weeks agoabout a couple of weeks ago. I know how you've always loved to wear a wristwatch, especially one from Europe. So I've bought one for you, which is gorgeous and stylish, in my opinionclassy in my taste. Housed in a beautiful platinum case, this watch has a shiny dark-silver strapshiny, dark silver colour strap. Besides, its crystal complements the hour markers, which glowits crystal perfectly matches with its hour markers inside which illuminate nicely in the dark. It is made by "Tissot", one of Switzerland's best-known watch brandsone of the renowned watch brands in Switzerland. I chose this gift not only because it will look good on you, but also becausebecause not only it'll look good on you, but also because it won’t get damaged quickly due to excessive sweating, Deleteespecially, when I know how profusely you sweat during the summer. I also thought it would be a meaningful souvenir from my tripa good gift from my tour for you. I think I'm going to send this watch by couriermail this watch in a courier service so it should be deliveredwhich should be delivered to you in the next couple of days. Please let me know whether I should send it towhether I should courier to your home or office address. Take care and stay fine. Warm wishes, Martin
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter fully covers the gift, the reasons for choosing it, and the intended delivery method in a friendly tone, with vivid descriptive detail. Its effectiveness is reduced by the absence of paragraphing and by several awkward or inaccurate expressions, especially around the watch design and courier arrangements. Organise the letter into clear stages and simplify the more strained sentences.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All three bullet points are clearly developed and the informal purpose is achieved.
Make the delivery plan more definite by stating when it will be sent after the address is confirmed.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas follow a sensible order, but the entire letter is compressed into one paragraph.
Separate greeting, gift description, reasons, delivery plan, and closing into short paragraphs.
Lexical Resource
The response shows good descriptive range, but several collocations are unnatural.
Prefer idiomatic phrases such as stylish to me, send by courier, and souvenir from my trip.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex forms are used, though correlative structure, modifiers, and relative clauses contain noticeable errors.
Check not only...but also parallelism and ensure modifiers refer to the intended noun.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You have recently purchased a gift item for one of your friends. Write a letter to this friend. In your letter:
- tell him/her about the gift
- tell how you want to send the gift to this friend
- explain why you chose this gift for your friend
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.