You are due to move into a rented apartment next month but you will not be able to because you have some problems. Write a letter to the landlord. In your letter: - explain your situation - describe your problems - tell him/her when you think you can move in
Sample Response
Dear Mr Alfred, I am writing to inform you that I willwould not be able to move into your apartment, C-4, at the beginning of November as promised. Due to a work commitmentDue to a professional reason, I will be staying in AustraliaI am staying in Australia and will not be back before 28th November 2019. I hope that you willI am hoping that you would allow me to move into your apartment in the first week of December insteadat the beginning of December instead. I was expecting to finish my work at the end of this weekend. However, I could not follow my planI would not act according to my plan as one of my clients had an accident and was admitted to hospitaladmitted to a hospital. Doctors advised him to take complete bed restadvised him complete bed rest for two weeks and strictly warned him not to engagewarned him not to take part in any business activity. I canwould only meet him two weeks from nowafter two weeks from now, I wanted to skip the meeting but was unable to do so due to a lot of businessnumerous business works we do with this clientwe take from this party. For this reason, I have changedTherefore, I have changed my plan and will come back two weeks later than originally planneddecided, which is 2929th November. Considering the situation, I would like to request that youI would request you to allow me to move into your apartment in the first week of December. Yours faithfully, Fahad Sultan
Why this response received Band 6.5
The letter clearly communicates the delayed move, explains the work-related cause, and proposes a suitable alternative date. Its main limitation is presentation: the single dense paragraph, overlong explanation, awkward collocations, and recurring grammatical errors make the request less polished. The highest-priority improvement is to divide the letter into clear paragraphs and state the reason and requested move-in week more concisely and accurately.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter explains the delayed move, describes the work-related problem, and gives a new move-in time. Some explanation is overlong for the landlord.
State the reason briefly and give the exact requested move-in week.
Coherence and Cohesion
The order is mostly logical, but the whole letter is one dense paragraph and contains a comma splice.
Use paragraphs for the delay, reason, and request.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is adequate for a formal request, but several collocations are unnatural.
Use phrases such as “for professional reasons” and “business dealings”.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Meaning is clear, but recurring errors with modals, articles, infinitives, and sentence boundaries reduce accuracy.
Review “will/would”, infinitives after “advise”, and punctuation between clauses.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You are due to move into a rented apartment next month but you will not be able to because you have some problems. Write a letter to the landlord. In your letter:
- explain your situation
- describe your problems
- tell him/her when you think you can move in
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.