You are going on holiday next week and you need to ask your friend to watch your dog while you are away. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter: - state how long you will be away - tell them what needs to be done - state how you will compensate them
Sample Response
Hey Tim, I’m going to be on vacation next weekmonth and I wanted to see if you could take care of my dog while I’m away. As you know, I’ve been thinking about vacationing in Jamaica for a long time. Well, last week I finally took the plunge and decided to book a two-week trip2 week trip. I wish I could have booked a longer stay, but that is all the time I could get off work. I would be so thankful if you could watch Totoif you watched Toto while I was away. He’s a very calm dog and doesn’t require much caremaintenance. All you will need to do is feed him twice a day and take him foron a walk each evening. There’s plenty, and there’s plenty of dog food in the house. If you can do me this favordo this favor for me, I will be happy to take you and your girlfriend out to El Gaucho because I know you love steak. I will even book the VIP room where Brad Pitt and AngelinaAngelena Jolie dined when they visited Ho Chi Minh City. Let me know if you can help me out with this. Best regards, Joe
Why this response received Band 7.5
The letter is engaging and fluent, with an appropriately friendly tone and clear, specific coverage of the dog's care and the promised compensation. Its main weakness is the mismatch between the requested holiday timing and the stated trip next month, while the single-block presentation also weakens readability. Align every key fact with the prompt and separate the request, care instructions, and compensation into clear paragraphs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The friendly letter clearly requests help and develops the trip length, care duties, and compensation, but it changes the prompt's departure time from next week to next month.
Keep all situational details consistent with the prompt, especially the timing of the holiday.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas progress logically from the request to care instructions and compensation, although almost the entire letter is presented as one long paragraph.
Use separate paragraphs for the request and context, the dog's routine, and the offered compensation.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and natural, with effective informal phrases such as 'took the plunge' and precise details about the dog's maintenance.
Refine minor lexical accuracy, including the spelling of 'Angelina' and more concise wording in a few places.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A wide range of simple and complex structures is used fluently, with only minor lapses that do not affect communication.
Use the correctly hyphenated form 'two-week trip' and continue checking small form errors in otherwise complex sentences.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You are going on holiday next week and you need to ask your friend to watch your dog while you are away. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter:
- state how long you will be away
- tell them what needs to be done
- state how you will compensate them
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.