You normally go shopping in the area where you live. However, you think some of the facilities for shoppers could be improved there. Write a letter to your local newspaper. In your letter: - say in general - what you like about shopping in your area - say what is wrong with the facilities - suggest how they can be improved
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, Your newspaper has a reputation for coveringdiscussing different issues relatedissues, related to the development projectsworks and improvements in our town. I sincerely hopeAnd I sure hope that you would consider this issuetake notice of this particular issue as well and publish it in your newspaper in order to attract the attention of the local authoritiesattention of the authority.
I am writing about theThe issue is related to the need to improve shopping facilitiesimprovement of shopping facilities in the Ferguson area where I like to shopwhere I like to visit and do shopping. Overall, I do notOf course, I do not really have much to complain about the shops in my area since most of them generally offerare generally offer affordable prices and carry quality products. I also like the fact that most of these shops are easily accessible from all directions.
However, when it comes to keeping the parking spaces in front of the shops clean and tidy, as well as offering additional seating or rest areassome extra sitting arrangement or resting places for tired and elderly shoppersthe tired and elderly shoppers, the shops in my area clearly need improvementcertainly could use some improvements.
Therefore, I suggest that the shops employ enough staff to keep the parking spaces clean while also providing comfortable seatingwhile providing some comfortable sitting arrangements also for the elderly shoppers to rest. I hope you will publish an editorial in your newspaper regarding this. Thank you in advance. Yours faithfully, Lydia Olivia
Why this response received Band 6.5
The response's strongest feature is its clear, well-organised fulfilment of the task, balancing praise for affordable, accessible shops with specific concerns about dirty parking areas and inadequate seating, followed by practical solutions. Its main limitation is recurring grammatical and collocational awkwardness, especially in long sentences. The highest-priority improvement is to simplify those sentences and use accurate plural and verb forms while retaining the effective paragraph structure.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter clearly explains what is liked, identifies two facility problems, and proposes relevant improvements in an appropriate public-facing tone.
Strengthen the request by specifying which local authority or shop management body should coordinate the cleaning and seating changes.
Coherence and Cohesion
Distinct paragraphs create clear progression from purpose to positive features, problems, solutions, and the request for publication.
Make the opening more direct and split the long problem sentence so each facility issue is immediately clear.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is sufficiently varied for discussing local facilities and improvements, but repeated or unnatural phrases such as "do shopping" and "sitting arrangements" reduce precision.
Use concise expressions such as "shop," "seating," "local authorities," and "maintenance staff."
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The message remains clear, but errors in verb forms, articles, punctuation, and sentence structure occur regularly.
Correct forms such as "most shops offer," avoid beginning a formal sentence with "And," and use plural nouns consistently.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You normally go shopping in the area where you live. However, you think some of the facilities for shoppers could be improved there. Write a letter to your local newspaper. In your letter:
- say in general
- what you like about shopping in your area
- say what is wrong with the facilities
- suggest how they can be improved
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.