You have been invited to attend an interview for a place studying a course at a college. Unfortunately, because of a previous appointment, you cannot come at the time they wish. Write a letter to the admission tutor. In your letter: - explain your position - apologise and offer to come on another day or later the same day - also ask how long the interview will be, and whether there will be any tests during it
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I have been accepted to join the MasterMasters of Science programme in the winter semester at your college. I am supposed to attend an interview with youI am supposed to meet you in an interview next Monday morning but I am afraid the time conflicts with another important meetingthe timing contradicts another important meeting. I am hoping that you would allow me to meet you some time later that daysometime later on that day or on a different day. I work with Optus Telecom and they have scheduled a general meeting on 27th November which conflicts with my interviewwhich contradicts my interview with you. The meeting in the office will start at 9.00 am, whereas my interview with you is set at 10.00 amThe meeting in the office will start at 9.00 am whereas my interview with you is set at 10.00 am on the same day. I understand how important it is for me to meet you to finalise my admission and I hope that you will allow meand hoping that you would allow me to change the interview timealter the timing as I really cannot make it at 10 am on 27th November. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience and I request you to kindly reschedule my interview for another day, or after 2 pm on 27th Novemberanother day or after 2 pm on the same day. I would be very grateful for your help.For this, I shall always be thankful to you. Also, kindly let me know if I need to take any tests as part of the interview process and how long the interview is expected to lasthow long the interview might continue. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon. Yours faithfully, Namrata Roy
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter fully addresses the scheduling conflict, apologises appropriately, proposes workable alternatives, and asks both required interview questions in a suitably formal tone. Its effectiveness is reduced by repeated explanation, one-block presentation, and several awkward sentence patterns, so the priority is to divide the message into focused paragraphs and express the rescheduling request more directly with simpler, natural formal language.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter fully addresses the purpose: it explains the clash, apologises, offers alternative times, and asks about length and tests. The tone is suitably formal, though a few details are repetitive.
Keep all four task points, but make the request more direct and remove repeated explanation about the same meeting clash.
Coherence and Cohesion
The message is logically ordered and easy to follow, but it is written as one long paragraph and relies on repeated wording such as timing and contradicts.
Use separate paragraphs for the reason, apology/request, and questions, and vary linking phrases to avoid repetition.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is generally appropriate for a formal request, with some strong phrases, but several word choices sound unnatural in context.
Replace awkward collocations such as timing contradicts and interview might continue with more natural formal expressions.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Meaning is clear, but there are recurring sentence-structure problems, especially missing subjects or awkward noun-verb combinations.
Check every long sentence for a complete subject and verb, and use simpler clauses when making formal requests.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You have been invited to attend an interview for a place studying a course at a college. Unfortunately, because of a previous appointment, you cannot come at the time they wish. Write a letter to the admission tutor. In your letter:
- explain your position
- apologise and offer to come on another day or later the same day
- also ask how long the interview will be, and whether there will be any tests during it
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.