For the past year, you have been a member of a local club. Now you want to discontinue your membership. Write a letter to the club secretary. In your letter: - state what type of membership you have and how you have paid for this - give details on how you have benefited from the club - explain why you want to leave
Sample Response
Dear Mr Nielsen, I am writing regardingin regard to the cancellation of my membership of the Philippine Society of Mechanical Engineersmembership at the Philippine Society of Mechanical Engineers club. I have been a Platinum Plus member since 2020, and I have received numerous benefits. I have decided to cancel my membership as I will movemigrate to Australia soon. This club has been a great help to me. As a member, I have learned many things through seminars organised by the clubseminars conducted by our society. I have also met professionals within our group and received useful career advice from them. My payments are up to date and I enclose a copy of my payment records which I made through an affiliated bank. With regardregards to my decision to leave the club, a year ago I applied for residency in Australia, and last week I received the visa approval'Approval Visa'. Under the circumstances, I have to cancel my membership as I will leave the country next month. I now seek your written confirmation of my membershipaccreditation as I am interested in joining a similar group in Australia, and they might ask for a reference. I might, therefore, request a reference from you in the near future. Thank you in advance and my best wishes for its members. Yours sincerely, Joel Calderon
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter clearly communicates the cancellation and gives useful detail about the membership, benefits, payment, and forthcoming move, with its strongest feature being the well-developed account of professional benefits. The main limitation is that the response is presented as one dense block and includes several imprecise formal expressions. Paragraph the distinct purposes and replace awkward choices such as "accreditation" with exact language about requesting a reference.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose is clear, all three bullet points are covered with relevant detail, and the formal tone is generally appropriate.
Keep the possible reference request shorter so the central purpose of ending the membership remains dominant.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas follow a sensible sequence, but the absence of paragraph breaks makes the different communicative purposes less easy to scan.
Use separate paragraphs for the cancellation and membership details, the benefits, and the reason for leaving.
Lexical Resource
The response shows a good range of formal and topic-specific vocabulary, although some choices are imprecise or unnatural.
Use "confirmation of membership" or "a reference" instead of "accreditation," and simplify awkward formal phrases.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of complex sentences is handled with generally good control, though several local phrasing and modifier problems reduce precision.
Revise structures such as "payment records which I made" so relative clauses clearly modify the intended noun.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
For the past year, you have been a member of a local club. Now you want to discontinue your membership. Write a letter to the club secretary. In your letter:
- state what type of membership you have and how you have paid for this
- give details on how you have benefited from the club
- explain why you want to leave
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.