Your neighbours have recently written to you to complain about the noise from your houseflat. Write a letter to your neighbours. In your letter: - explain the reasons for the noise - apologise - describe what action you will take
Sample Response
Dear Mr Thompson, I hope that you are doing well. I am writing to apologise for the inconvenience caused by the party held at our residence last Saturday night. I hopeI am hoping that you will accept my apology. With regardregards to the unexpected noise - it was caused by our celebration ofcreated by the celebration of my parents' 40th wedding anniversary. You can imagine that we wanted to make the occasion really special to commemorate our parents' 4 decades of a beautiful journey together. I visited your flat to invite your familyI went to your flat to invite your family but you were away that weekaway for the week. We invited some close friends and relatives to the party and the gathering caused the disturbancegathering must have created the noise. I imaginefathom the children were shouting loudly whenever they received toyswere presented with a toy. In additionMoreover, they were running and shouting while playingfor fun. The music was also a little too louda bit louder and we realised toovery late that it might have disturbed our neighboursit might disturb the neighbours. At such parties, I would ensure in future that the music is kept as low as possible and arrange some fun games for children that would keep them busy and less noisy. Once again I would like to ask for an apology. Thank youThanks a lot for being so understanding. Naaz Ria
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter responds fully and courteously, gives a detailed explanation for the disturbance, and offers practical steps to prevent a recurrence. Its main limitation is the lack of paragraphing, compounded by a few conspicuously unnatural word choices; the highest-priority improvement is to separate the apology, explanation, and future action into clear paragraphs and replace expressions such as 'I fathom' and 'ask for an apology' with natural alternatives.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The apology, reasons for the noise, and future preventive actions are all fully and appropriately developed.
Avoid assuming the neighbour's understanding and close by inviting further contact if the disturbance recurs.
Coherence and Cohesion
The content moves logically from apology to explanation and action, but the single unbroken block obscures that structure.
Use separate paragraphs for the opening apology, causes of the noise, proposed action, and closing.
Lexical Resource
The response shows good range, but several conspicuous miscollocations, including 'I fathom' and 'ask for an apology', reduce naturalness.
Choose idiomatic alternatives such as 'I realise' and 'apologise once again', and avoid unnecessarily formal phrasing.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentence forms are varied and mostly accurate, with only minor lapses that do not impede communication.
Refine punctuation around introductory phrases and keep future-action structures consistently parallel.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
Your neighbours have recently written to you to complain about the noise from your houseflat. Write a letter to your neighbours. In your letter:
- explain the reasons for the noise
- apologise
- describe what action you will take
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.