You will move to a new city for work. You know some people who live there. Write a letter to one of your friends. In your letter: - ask them for help finding accommodation? - tell them where you would like to live? - tell them the type of place you are looking for?
Sample Response
Dear John,
I hope this letter finds you in good health. I am writing to share exciting newsbreathtaking information that I will be movingmigrating to Sydney in two weeksin another two weeks. I have received the job opportunity I had been hopingaching for the past few months. Since I am moving thereMoreover, I will needwould require a place to live in the new city. I request you to help me find accommodationguide me in house hunting as you have been living there for more than three yearsas you have been living for more than three years.
I have a few preferencescriteria with regardregards to the accommodation. My organization is in the downtown area, and I would like to stay near my workplace. I prefer not to spend a lot of timespend lots of time commuting to the office in heavy trafficon the traffic-congested roads.
Additionally, I would like to express my views on the insights of the apartment for accommodation. I prefer to stay in a gated community despite the high costdespite the enormous living costs. There are excellent amenities in such communitieslocalities: a gym, a pool, and sports facilitiesgym, pool, and sports clubs.
Please let me know if you find a suitable placeany such arrangement and I hope to hearand hope to hear from you soon.
Best regards,
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter addresses every requested point clearly and uses sensible paragraphing to move from the request for help to location and accommodation preferences. Its main weakness is an unevenly friendly register combined with several unnatural collocations that distract from the message. The most useful improvement would be to use simpler, idiomatic language that sounds natural when writing to a friend.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The response clearly asks for help, identifies a preferred area, and describes the desired home and amenities with relevant detail.
Adopt a consistently informal, personal tone suited to a friend rather than using formal requests and business-like phrasing.
Coherence and Cohesion
The letter is logically sequenced and each paragraph has a clear function, with ideas easy to follow throughout.
Reduce formulaic connectors such as Moreover and Additionally where the paragraph relationship is already obvious.
Lexical Resource
There is sufficient range to describe the move and accommodation, but combinations such as breathtaking information and insights of the apartment are inaccurate.
Use natural collocations such as exciting news, looking for a flat, and features of the apartment.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses varied sentence structures with generally good control, despite a few omissions and faulty constructions.
Check that dependent clauses have complete references and that coordinated clauses each contain the necessary subject.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You will move to a new city for work. You know some people who live there. Write a letter to one of your friends. In your letter:
- ask them for help finding accommodation?
- tell them where you would like to live?
- tell them the type of place you are looking for?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.