You will move to a new city for work. You know some people who live there. In your letter: - Ask them for help finding accommodation - Tell them where you would like to live - Tell them the type of place you are looking for
Sample Response
Dear [Name]Dear Sir, I wanted to let you know that I am coming to live in (city) and I would like to ask if you can help me with a few things before I arrive and start my new job. Do you think you could give me a hand finding somewhere to live? Ideally I would like to live close to where I am going to be working, or in the downtown district. If possible I would like to be near some shops, like a supermarket and a DVD rental place. As I really love sports,As I really love sports it would be great to be near a park too. I’m not too worried about the place itself. Obviously I will be looking for a flat, rather than a house, as I will be living aloneit is just going to be me and I have a limited budgetwon’t be able to afford too much. So, a place with one bedroom is fine, but I would like to have a private bathroomprivate bathroom (not shared), a kitchen and a living areasome kind of living room. It doesn’t matter if the kitchen is small, but it would be niceit would nice to have one. I would prefer to live somewhere new, so anything in a modern apartment block would be great. Thanks for your help. Best wishes, [Your name]Thanks for your help
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter gives extensive, useful details about the preferred location and accommodation and makes the request for help very clear. Its chief limitation is an inconsistent relationship with the recipients: the formal greeting and unfinished placeholder do not suit people the writer knows, while the body is informal; the priority is to adopt a consistently friendly opening and closing and supply the actual city.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All three bullet points are developed clearly, but the greeting, missing sign-off, and city placeholder weaken the suitability of the letter for known recipients.
Address the acquaintances by name, replace the placeholder with the city, and finish with a friendly sign-off to establish the correct relationship.
Coherence and Cohesion
The content moves sensibly from the request to preferred location and then to detailed accommodation requirements, with clear links between ideas.
Organise these stages into separate paragraphs so the long list of preferences is easier for the recipients to process.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is sufficiently varied and specific for discussing neighbourhood features, affordability, rooms, and apartment style.
Use a more precise expression than 'some kind of living room' and remove dated or unnecessary details that dilute the request.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses a good range of compound and complex sentences with generally accurate control and clear meaning.
Correct the omitted verb in 'it would nice to have one' and review comma use around short clauses and phrases.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You will move to a new city for work. You know some people who live there. In your letter:
- Ask them for help finding accommodation
- Tell them where you would like to live
- Tell them the type of place you are looking for
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.