A friend of yours is thinking of going on a camping holiday for the first time this summer. He/She has asked for your advice. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter: - explain why you think your friend would enjoy a camping holiday - describe some possible disadvantages - say whether you would like to go camping with your friend this summer
Sample Response
Dear Reggie, It is great to know that you're intending to go onfor a camping holiday this summerin the coming summer, and thank youand also thank you for asking me for advicetaking me into confidence for some advice. I think you should take the opportunity and go this summertake the opportunity and make it this summer. I think that you should go for a camping holiday because from my past experience of campingfrom my past camping experience, I can say that you'll enjoy it quite a lotyou'll quite enjoy it. After all, this camping holiday will offer you the opportunity to take a long walk in the wilderness and observe wildlife in its natural habitatnature in its true habitat. You can also go to a nearby lake for fishing or swimming, whichswimming which you have always wanted to do. But the best thingBut, the best thing about this camping holiday will be that it'll actually improve your mood and leave you feeling thoroughly refreshedrejuvenate you like nothing else.
Having said that, there are some disadvantages of such a camping holidayof such camping holiday as well, such as sharing bathrooms with other people at the campsite, bad weather, and dealing with bug bites and dangerous animals. Anyway, I would also love to go camping with you this summerI also would have loved to go camping with you this summer, but since my cousin is visiting me from abroad this summer, I'll have to give up on that idea. Take care and stay wellfine. Warm wishes, Carlos
Why this response received Band 7.5
The letter gives friendly, relevant advice and covers every requested point, with particularly effective detail about why the friend would enjoy camping. The main limitation is occasional awkward wording and grammatical control in otherwise ambitious sentences; improving article use, verb patterns, and a few unnatural expressions would make the message more consistently fluent while preserving its clear, encouraging tone.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All three bullet points are clearly covered with relevant reasons, disadvantages, and a credible explanation for declining the invitation.
Develop one disadvantage with a practical consequence or piece of advice to balance the fuller discussion of benefits.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response follows a clear progression from encouragement to drawbacks and the writer's own plans, with effective overall cohesion.
Reduce repeated phrases such as camping holiday and vary the openings of consecutive sentences.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and often vivid, although a few collocations are imprecise or unnatural.
Use more idiomatic expressions, such as taking someone into your confidence and experiencing nature in its natural setting.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The writer uses a broad range of sentence forms successfully, but several article, clause, and tense choices are inaccurate.
Review articles and conditional phrasing, particularly a camping holiday and I would love to go.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
A friend of yours is thinking of going on a camping holiday for the first time this summer. He/She has asked for your advice. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter:
- explain why you think your friend would enjoy a camping holiday
- describe some possible disadvantages
- say whether you would like to go camping with your friend this summer
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.