A friend has agreed to look after your house and pet while you are on holiday. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter: - give contact details for when you are away - give instructions on how to care for your pet - describe other household duties
Sample Response
Dear Grace, Thank you for agreeing to house-sit for me. I was greatly relieved when you agreedIt was a great relief when you agreed to take on these responsibilitiestake up the responsibilities. I'd like to thank you for that and inform some of the chores you should take care of. If you need to contact me while I am in Thailandfor any reason during my holiday in Thailand, please call me on my mobileplease ring my mobile phone. I’ve written my contact numbersthe numbers on a sticky note which I’ve left on the fridge. I'll stay at the Mandarin Oriental Bangkok Hotel, and ifHotel and if I change my hotel, I'll let you knowI'll inform you of that. You can alsoAlternatively, you can message me on WhatsApp. My cat needs to be fed twice daily, sotwice daily so each morning and evening, please puteach morning and evening put a handful of cat food in his dish. You'll find the cat foodYou'll find these in the kitchen pantry. Also, please check throughout the day to make sure he has fresh water. You can give him a small bowl of milk in the evening. I'd like you to water my plants, too. The indoor plantsones in the lounge only need water once every few days, butfew days but the plants on the balcony need to be watered daily unless there has been heavy rain. Finally, for security, please emptyclear my mailbox every day and keep the outside lights on at night. I look forward to seeing you on my return. Warm wishes, Sophia
Why this response received Band 7.5
The letter fulfils its practical purpose very effectively, giving multiple contact options and precise instructions for feeding the cat, watering plants, collecting mail, and managing outdoor lights. Its main limitation is structural: the entire response is presented as one paragraph, and a few references such as 'these' are slightly unclear. The highest-priority improvement is to group contact details, pet care, and household duties into short paragraphs so the friend can locate each instruction quickly.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All three bullet points are fully and appropriately developed in a friendly tone, with specific contact, pet-care, and household instructions.
For maximum practical clarity, identify an emergency alternative contact as a minor refinement to the already complete instructions.
Coherence and Cohesion
The content progresses logically by function and linking is clear, but the single-paragraph presentation makes the detailed instructions harder to scan.
Use one short paragraph each for contact arrangements, cat care, plant care, and security duties.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied, natural, and precise for the informal context, with only a few slightly awkward phrases or references.
Replace 'take up the responsibilities' and 'inform some of the chores' with 'take on the responsibility' and 'explain the chores'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of sentence forms is used accurately and flexibly, with only minor punctuation or reference lapses.
Add commas around longer conditional clauses where helpful and make plural references explicit, such as 'the bags of cat food are in the pantry'.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
A friend has agreed to look after your house and pet while you are on holiday. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter:
- give contact details for when you are away
- give instructions on how to care for your pet
- describe other household duties
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.