You celebrated your birthday with some friends last week in a restaurant. It was a great success and you and your friends enjoyed the evening very much. Write a letter to the restaurant. In your letter: - thank the restaurant for the successful evening - mention the food, service and atmosphere - suggest improvements that could make things better
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to express my gratitude for the hospitality you providedservice you offered on 3030th December when I visited your restaurant with my friendsalong with my friends to celebrate my birthday. It was one of the most memorable birthday celebrationsevents in my life and your staff made it even more special by offering a complimentary birthday cake. You have definitely gained me as a loyal customerwon me as one of your permanent customers and I would love to recommend your restaurant to my acquaintances. The atmosphere inside the restaurant was calm and welcomingvery soothing and relaxing. Beautiful interior and wonderful and accurately placed lighting system - neither too bright nor too dim make this place a perfect spot for celebrations. The taste of the food was just out of thisthe world. I particularly appreciated thatAllow me to say that the meal made me feel nostalgicyou made me nostalgic as the food tasted similar to my mother’s cooking at homewhat my mother cooks for me back at home, though this made me miss my home and mother even more.mother more! However, I have a suggestion to make. You may consider introducingthink of introducing a loyalty discount cardsome discount cards or offering some discounts for local residentscorporate discounts to the people of the nearby area. This, I believe, would make our meals outour dine-outs more affordablemore pocket-friendly. I hope that you will consider this suggestion. Once again, manybig thanks to you and your staff for making my birthday especially memorablemore distinctive. Yours faithfully, Pooja Gupta
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter conveys warm, specific appreciation and covers the food, service, atmosphere, and a practical discount suggestion, making the communicative purpose successful. Its main weakness is presentation and precision: the entire response forms one paragraph, while several expressions and one lighting sentence are awkward or grammatically unstable. Prioritise clear paragraphing around appreciation, experience, and improvement, with more natural descriptive language.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The thanks are convincing, the food, service, and atmosphere are all described, and a relevant improvement is suggested in a suitably warm tone.
Make the improvement more directly useful to the restaurant by briefly explaining how a local discount scheme could attract repeat customers.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas follow a clear sequence from gratitude through detailed praise to the suggestion, but the lack of paragraph breaks weakens organisation.
Separate the opening thanks, the food-service-atmosphere description, and the improvement suggestion into focused paragraphs.
Lexical Resource
The response uses varied and expressive vocabulary, though several choices are exaggerated, awkward, or imprecise for this context.
Replace phrases such as ‘won me as a permanent customer’, ‘out of the world’, and ‘more distinctive’ with natural appreciative language.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Most sentences are well controlled and varied, but the description of the interior and lighting contains article, agreement, and construction errors.
Rewrite that sentence with a clear subject and agreement, for example by stating that the beautiful interior and well-positioned lighting make the restaurant ideal.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You celebrated your birthday with some friends last week in a restaurant. It was a great success and you and your friends enjoyed the evening very much. Write a letter to the restaurant. In your letter:
- thank the restaurant for the successful evening
- mention the food, service and atmosphere
- suggest improvements that could make things better
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.