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 about how to care for your pet. - Describe other household duties.
Sample Response
Dear John,
I feel very gratefuloverwhelmed with happiness that you have agreedconcurred to look aftertake sole responsibility for my home and my dog Scooby. My family and I will leave for vacation on Friday night and expect to return on 19 Juneexpect to arrive by 19th June. I’ll provide you with some instructions for while we are awaysuggestions when we are away and ensure that you’ll have a comfortable and convenient stay during our absence.
If ScoobyScoby is unwell all of a sudden or there are any other unexpected problems with himunprecedented circumstances with it, then please call the nearby vet clinic immediately without hesitationwithout any second thoughts. They’re open 24 hours a dayoperational all the time. Please callgive a missed call to the toll-free number +1800900700, and they will respond immediately to book an appointment and visit the house as soon as possiblevisit us as soon as possible.
Furthermore, my pet eats only twice a dayhas supper only twice a day. I have left the dog foodI kept the dog food in the pantry, and you can serve one portion in the food bowl at each mealserve two portions in the food bowl. It is fond of vegetables. Therefore, please feed him a few chopped vegetables as an evening snackan evening snack of a few chopped veggies should be fed, and those are available in the fridge.
In addition, I have the habit of watering plants in the garden at sunset. Hence, you can continue doing thiscontinue the same every day at dusk. There is a supermarket in the community, and you can restock any groceriesrefill the groceries according to your convenience.
Thank you in advance for your kindhonorable gesture of taking care of my home and pet on behalf of my family, and I hope to see you soon.
Best regardsRegards,
Why this response received Band 6.5
The letter is easy to follow and gives useful detail about feeding the dog, contacting the vet, and watering the plants. Its main weakness is task fulfilment: the writer does not provide their own contact details while away, and the highly formal wording sounds unnatural for a close friend. Prioritise adding a phone number or other direct contact method and using warmer, simpler language.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose is clear and pet care and household duties are developed, but the requested contact details for the writer are not supplied and the tone is overly formal for a friend.
Provide a personal phone number or email for emergencies and use a more natural friendly tone throughout.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information progresses logically through separate paragraphs for the vet, feeding, and household duties, with clear referencing and linking.
Use fewer formulaic transition words so the practical instructions connect more naturally.
Lexical Resource
The response shows a good range of vocabulary, though several choices such as 'concurred,' 'unprecedented circumstances,' and 'honorable gesture' are awkward in this context.
Choose simpler, more idiomatic wording that fits an informal letter to a friend.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of complex sentences is used with generally clear meaning, but there are occasional tense, reference, and construction problems.
Check tense consistency and recast awkward structures such as 'a few chopped veggies should be fed' into natural active clauses.
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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 about how to care for your pet.
- Describe other household duties.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.