You are going away to travel for the summer. A friend will be looking after your house while you are away. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter: - say where you are going - describe how to look after your pet - explain some of the things your friend should do to look after your house
Sample Response
Dear Valentina, Thank you for agreeing to house-sit for me from 3 to 10 Augustthe whole week while I am awaywhile I will be away in Bali, Indonesia. If you need to contact me during this time, I’ll be staying at the Liberty Dive Resort. If it’s urgent, however, please ring my mobile phone, which I’ll keep onwith me at all times. My cat, Tommy, needs to be fed twice daily, so each morningtwice daily so each morning and evening put a handful of his food in his dish. I have leftreserved enough food for him and you can find it in the kitchen cabinet labelled Tommykitchen cabinet marked as Tommy. Also, please check throughout the day to make sure he has fresh water. You can give him a small bowl of milk in the evening. You can also let him play outsideFinally, let him play outside in the evening but make sure he gets back before it gets darkbefore the dark settles in. I would like you to water my plants, too. The indoor ones in the lounge only need water once every few days but the plants on the balcony need to be watered daily unless there has been heavy rain. For securityFinally, for security, please clear my mailbox every day and switch the outside lights on each eveningkeep the outside lights on at night. I look forward to seeing you on my return. Best wishesYours ever, Isabella
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter covers the destination, contact arrangements, pet care, plants, and security with useful, practical detail, and its language is mostly natural and controlled. Its main limitation is presentation: the instructions form one long block, repeated sequencing language weakens the organisation, and the travel dates are missing. The highest priority is to divide the guidance into clearly focused paragraphs and add exact departure and return dates.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter fully covers destination, pet care, and house-care instructions with useful detail. It could include the exact travel dates to make the house-sitting arrangement more complete.
Add departure and return dates, then keep the pet and house instructions in clearly separated paragraphs.
Coherence and Cohesion
The information is logically ordered, but the response is one long block after the greeting, and repeated use of finally weakens the structure.
Use separate paragraphs or bullet-like instruction groups for travel contact, cat care, plants, and security.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is generally natural and task-appropriate, with clear household and pet-care language. A few phrases are unnatural, such as reserved enough food and marked as Tommy.
Use more natural household collocations such as left enough food, labelled Tommy, and before it gets dark.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Grammar is mostly controlled, though there are minor tense, article, and phrase-level errors.
Check future time clauses and article use in routine instructions.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You are going away to travel for the summer. A friend will be looking after your house while you are away. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter:
- say where you are going
- describe how to look after your pet
- explain some of the things your friend should do to look after your house
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.