A friend who lives in a different city has invited you to his/her daughter's 8th birthday. However, you can not accept the invitation due to some personal reasons. Write a letter to this friend. In your letter: - thank him/her for the invitation - mention why you can not attend the birthday party - offer to meet him/her some other day
Sample Response
Dear Wilson, It was great to hear from you, and I’m really surprised that Diana has already turned eight! It sounds as if she has grown so fast. I wish her a happy birthday and thank you for inviting me to this special occasion. I'd love to be at Diana's birthday party, butbirthday party but I’m terribly sorry that I can't make it due to several deadlines at worksome deadlines at my office next week. The problem is that I was promotedI’ve been promoted to anthe assistant manager position a few months ago and the work pressure has skyrocketed since then. The office management has assured me that I'll be given an assistant soon, butsoon but until that happens, I'll hardly have time for myself. Perhaps I can visit you sometime next summer and stay with you for a couple of dayswhen I hope I'll stay with you for a couple of days. Please share some birthday photos on Facebook so that I can get a glimpseso that I get a glimpse of the celebration. I owe Diana a birthday gift. Anyway, I must finish today. Thanks once againSo thanks once again for your kind invitation, and I do hope that we can get together sometime in the summer. Warm wishes, Harris
Why this response received Band 7.5
The letter handles the refusal warmly and convincingly, covering every requested point with a clear explanation and flexible, expressive language. Its main weakness is the single-block presentation, alongside a few tense and phrasing slips; the highest-priority improvement is to separate the thanks, reason, and alternative visit into logical paragraphs while correcting time references such as the promotion sentence.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response thanks the friend, gives a convincing and well-developed reason for declining, and proposes a later visit in a consistently warm tone.
Make the alternative arrangement more actionable by suggesting a narrower period or asking which dates next summer would suit the friend.
Coherence and Cohesion
The message progresses naturally through thanks, explanation, and a future meeting, but the absence of paragraph breaks limits clarity.
Create separate paragraphs for the invitation response, the work-related reason, and the proposed summer visit.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is flexible, precise, and natural, with effective expressions such as "work pressure has skyrocketed" and "a glimpse of the celebration."
Refine the few less natural phrases, for example replacing "I must finish today" with "I must finish here for now."
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of structures is handled accurately overall, with only occasional tense and phrasing errors that do not impede meaning.
Match verb tense to finished time references by writing "I was promoted a few months ago" rather than using the present perfect.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
A friend who lives in a different city has invited you to his/her daughter's 8th birthday. However, you can not accept the invitation due to some personal reasons. Write a letter to this friend. In your letter:
- thank him/her for the invitation
- mention why you can not attend the birthday party
- offer to meet him/her some other day
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.