You would like to buy some electrical goods at a shop in a nearby town. Write a letter to the shop. In your letter: - ask whether the shop has the goods or can order them - ask what the prices are - ask how long the shop can hold the goods for you
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to inquire about the availability of some electrical goods that I intend to purchase. One of my colleagues recommended your shop to merecommended me your shop and I hope you willI am hoping you would be able to supply those products to my home address. The items that I require are a Braun men’sMen’s trimmer, an electricelectronic burner, a microwave oven and a rice cooker. I live in Burneyshire, a small town near your store and would like to purchasewould like to get purchase those from your store. I need those products before the end of July. Would you please write back to mewrite me back with the product details and pricesdetails of the products with prices? Please mention any discountsdiscount you can offer. If the items are not in stockin your stock, would you be able to order them from another source? FurthermoreFurther, I would like to know how long you would be ablehow long will you be able to hold themit for me? I hope you canI am expecting you can hold these products untiltill the last week of July. I look forward to hearingI am hoping to hear from you soon. Yours faithfully, Sameed Qureshi
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter achieves its practical purpose and covers availability, ordering, prices, discounts, and the requested holding period with useful product details and a suitably polite tone. Its main weakness is recurring grammatical awkwardness in requests and object references; the highest-priority improvement is to separate the questions clearly and use accurate indirect-question structures so the shop can respond to each point without ambiguity.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All three bullet points are clearly addressed and supported with relevant details about the products and deadline, although the delivery request is not central to the task.
State the desired holding date as a direct question and keep the focus on stock, price, ordering, and collection arrangements.
Coherence and Cohesion
The letter progresses logically from the item list to price, availability, ordering, and holding time, but presenting everything in one paragraph weakens readability.
Use one paragraph for the requested items and availability, and another for prices, discounts, and the holding period.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is appropriate for a product enquiry, but collocations such as "recommended me your shop," "get purchase," and "details of the products with prices" are inaccurate.
Use natural phrases such as "recommended your shop to me," "purchase them," and "send me the product details and prices."
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The meaning remains clear, but errors recur in verb patterns, indirect questions, pronoun agreement, and clause construction.
Write requests as "how long you would be able to hold them for me" and maintain plural reference to the listed products throughout.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You would like to buy some electrical goods at a shop in a nearby town. Write a letter to the shop. In your letter:
- ask whether the shop has the goods or can order them
- ask what the prices are
- ask how long the shop can hold the goods for you
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.