You are having a graduation party next Saturday night. You have invited 50 people to celebrate at an outdoor barbecue evening, which may continue till late night. Write a letter to your elderly neighbour. In your letter: - explain what will be happening - offer your apologies in advance - invite him/her to visit your house someday / Ms..................,
Sample Response
Dear Ms Courtney, Hope that you and your family are doing well I hope you and your family are doing wellby the grace of Almighty. I am one of your neighboursone of your good neighbours, and I am writing this letter to inform you about a graduation party, which I am planning to hold next Saturday nighthold, the next Saturday night. I fully understand that the party might cause you some inconvenience since I have invited about 50 people to enjoy an outdoor barbecuebarbeque evening, which might create some noise. Besides, the party may continue untiltill late at night where a few of my friends might even start singing and playing guitarsventure to sing along with their guitars while enjoying the night. Of course, we will try to keep the noisenoise and sound as low as we can, but if it does trouble youin case if it does trouble you, I would like to apologize to you in advance. I would also be delighted ifBut, on the other hand, instead of just sitting at your home, you could also join our party, and I would love to invite you to visit my house for tea some other dayyou could also join our party because, if you do,because if you do, I will do my best to ensureI can certainly guarantee you that we will do everything to make sure that you enjoy our party. In fact, we would feel honoured if you joinedjoin our party. Yours sincerely, Aaron Johnson
Why this response received Band 7.5
The letter clearly explains the event, acknowledges possible disruption, and uses varied, generally suitable vocabulary to maintain a polite purpose. Its main limitation is that the invitation concerns joining the barbecue rather than visiting the house on another day; the highest-priority improvement is to address that bullet explicitly, then separate the apology and invitation into clear paragraphs while tightening awkward phrases.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter explains the barbecue party and apologises in advance for possible noise. It invites the neighbour to the party, but the prompt asks the writer to invite the neighbour to visit the house someday, so one bullet point is only partly addressed.
Add a separate invitation for Ms Courtney to visit another day after the party, not only to join the barbecue.
Coherence and Cohesion
The progression is clear and the reader can follow the event, possible inconvenience, apology, and invitation. However, the whole response is one block, and repeated contrast markers such as “But” weaken cohesion.
Use paragraph breaks and make the apology and invitation sections distinct.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and generally suitable, including “inconvenience”, “outdoor barbeque evening”, and “honoured”. Some phrases are awkward or too informal, such as “by the grace of Almighty” and “venture to sing along”.
Use polite neighbourly language and avoid phrases that sound overly religious, theatrical, or indirect.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Grammar is mostly clear, but there are article, preposition, and conditional-structure errors. Long sentences sometimes need tighter punctuation.
Proofread article use and conditional clauses, especially around “the next Saturday night” and “in case it troubles you”.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You are having a graduation party next Saturday night. You have invited 50 people to celebrate at an outdoor barbecue evening, which may continue till late night. Write a letter to your elderly neighbour. In your letter:
- explain what will be happening
- offer your apologies in advance
- invite him/her to visit your house someday / Ms..................,
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.