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 Cynthia, Thank you for agreeing to house-sit for me. If you need to contact me while I’m away, I’ll be staying at The Merrion Hotel, Merrion Square in Dublin. If it’s urgent, however, please call me on my mobilecall me on my mobile phone, which I’ll keep with me at all times. I’ve written the numbers on a sticky note left on the fridgewhich I’ve left on the fridge. My cat needs to be fed twice daily—morning and evening.twice daily -morning and evening. So each morning and evening put a handful of cat food in his dish and fresh water in his water pot. You will find the food in a jar in the kitchen cupboard. Please check throughout the day to make sure he drinks plenty of fresh water. You can give him a small bowl of milk in the evening but only every other daybut do it every other day. I would like you to water my plants, too. The indoor plantsones in the lounge only need water twice a week but the plants on the balcony need to be watered daily except on rainy days. Finally, for security, please lock the door and shut the windows before you go to bed. Also, emptyclear my mailbox every day and keep the outside lights on at night. I look forward to seeing you on my return. Warm wishes, Donna
Why this response received Band 8.0
The letter fully addresses the practical needs of the situation with specific contact details, clear pet-care instructions, and useful household duties, all in an appropriately warm tone. Its main limitation is presentation: placing every idea in one continuous paragraph weakens the otherwise clear progression. Divide the response into purposeful paragraphs while preserving the precise, natural instructions and strong grammatical control.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose and all three bullet points are covered fully with specific, helpful details and a suitably friendly tone.
Refine the pet-care directions by clarifying small details such as the exact amount of food or where emergency veterinary information can be found.
Coherence and Cohesion
The information follows a clear practical sequence, but the entire letter is presented as one continuous paragraph.
Use separate paragraphs for contact information, pet care, and household duties to make the structure immediately visible.
Lexical Resource
A flexible and precise vocabulary, including terms such as house-sit, urgent, sticky note, and mailbox, communicates the instructions naturally.
Replace the slightly awkward phrase water pot with water bowl and continue refining occasional word choices.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of sentence structures is used accurately, with only minor punctuation and spacing slips that do not impede meaning.
Proofread details such as the missing space in twice daily -morning and evening to achieve consistently polished accuracy.
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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.