You recently received an invitation to a dinner party at your friend’s house. Write a letter to accept the invitation. In your letter: - explain why you are accepting the invitation - describe why you are looking forward to the dinner party - offer to bring a dish to share ___________,
Sample Response
Dear Samantha, I hope you’re doing well. I am writing about the invitationinvite to your dinner party this Thursday night. I’d be delighted to comeI’ll be happy to come! It’s been a while since we’ve seen each other, and I can’t wait to hear about your new job. It will also be lovely to see John after all this time. And please tell him hello for me right away, and let him know I look forward to seeing him. I’ve missed him so much. DeleteIn fact, I’m looking forward to the party for a number of reasons. Besides enjoying your companyBeyond the pleasure of your company, I always love your cooking. The chicken that you made last time was delicious! With you in charge of the meal, I know we’ll have an excellent eveningwe are guaranteed an excellent evening. To contributeAs for me, I would be glad to bring something to sharebring something to the table myself. Could I perhaps bake a cake for dessert, or bring a bottle of wine? Let me know. Looking forward to seeing you soon. All the best, Rachel
Why this response received Band 8.0
This is a warm, natural letter that clearly accepts the invitation, gives several personal reasons for anticipating the evening, and offers suitable contributions. Its main limitation is presentation: the single block and repeated references to looking forward to the event reduce polish, while the extended focus on John is slightly disproportionate. The priority is to organize the message into functional paragraphs and express each idea once, concisely.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter fully achieves its purpose, covers every bullet point with relevant detail, and maintains an engaging informal tone.
Make the offer even more decisive by naming one dish that you will bring rather than presenting alternatives.
Coherence and Cohesion
The message follows a natural progression, but its single-block format and repeated anticipation language slightly weaken cohesion.
Use short functional paragraphs and remove repeated statements about looking forward to seeing the hosts.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is flexible, natural, and well matched to a friendly letter, with effective references to food and companionship.
Refine the section about John with more concise phrasing so the warm tone remains controlled.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide variety of sentence forms is used with strong accuracy and only very minor awkwardness.
Avoid chaining several coordinated clauses with repeated 'and' when one cleaner complex sentence would be more elegant.
Write this task while it is fresh
Try the same task now. It helps you remember the feedback and write better next time.
IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You recently received an invitation to a dinner party at your friend’s house. Write a letter to accept the invitation. In your letter:
- explain why you are accepting the invitation
- describe why you are looking forward to the dinner party
- offer to bring a dish to share ___________,
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.