Your new neighbours have recently invited you to a party they are holding next Saturday. However, you have other plans on Saturday evening and cannot attend the party. Write a letter to your neighbours. In your letter: - thank them for the invitation - mention what plans you already have - suggest when you can meet them
Sample Response
Dear Mr and Mrs Arthur, I would like to thank you for inviting us to the party you are holding at your home next Saturday. We are delightedhonoured to be invited. However, a prior commitmenta prescheduled plan preventsdeters us from attending your partythis much-welcomed party, and I hopeI am hoping that we can meet some other day. We need to bewill have to be at the local airport to meetreceive our uncle and his family that Saturday eveningon that very Saturday evening. They are travelling from Italy to visitmeet us, and they are dueexpected to land at the airport at 7.30 pm. We have assured them that we will be at the airport, and I am afraid we can not change these planschange the schedule. They will be visiting Canada for the first time and expecting us to escort them to our house. I wish we could becould have been at your home to enjoy the party and get to know some of your relatives. I hope we can do that another time.Hopefully, we will do that some other time. We can meet you on a weekend and have some quality time together. Please let me know when you can do that. Wishing you a grand party and quality time with your guests. Sincerely yours, Martin Cammy
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter fully addresses the invitation, the airport commitment, and a future meeting, with a warm and courteous tone throughout. Clear sequencing and mostly accurate complex sentences support communication, but the single-block presentation and several over-formal or unnatural word choices make the message less natural for new neighbours. Use distinct paragraphs and simpler, more idiomatic social language while offering a more specific meeting time.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response fulfils all three points and clearly explains the unavoidable airport plan, though the suggested meeting remains vague and the tone is occasionally over-formal.
Suggest a specific day or weekend and use a more naturally friendly tone for new neighbours.
Coherence and Cohesion
The ideas progress logically from thanks to the reason for declining and then to another meeting, but the entire letter is presented as one paragraph.
Use separate paragraphs for the invitation response, existing plans, and proposed alternative meeting.
Lexical Resource
There is a sufficient range for the situation, but combinations such as ‘a prescheduled plan deters us’ and ‘this much-welcomed party’ sound forced.
Prefer direct, idiomatic social expressions instead of overly elaborate wording.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses varied sentence forms with generally good control, and the few awkward constructions do not impede meaning.
Refine parallel verb forms and shorten cumbersome coordinated sentences for more natural accuracy.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
Your new neighbours have recently invited you to a party they are holding next Saturday. However, you have other plans on Saturday evening and cannot attend the party. Write a letter to your neighbours. In your letter:
- thank them for the invitation
- mention what plans you already have
- suggest when you can meet them
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.