You recently attended a meeting at a hotel. When you returned home, you found you had left some important papers at the hotel. Write a letter to the manager of the hotel. In your letter: - say where you think you left the papers - explain why they are so important - tell the manager what you want him/her to do
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing this letter to inform you that I have left some important papers when I checked out of your hotel about a couple of days ago. I hope you canI am hoping that you would be kind enough to send the papers to my address by postthose papers to my address via the postal service. My name is Lucas FosterI am Lucas Foster, and I stayed in room 434room number 434 on the sixth floor of your hotel. I am assuming that I must have left the papers in one of the drawers of your TV desk in a hurry when I needed to attend an urgent meeting with some of my clients in the City Hall. The documents that I left in your hotel room are extremelyutterly important because they contain all the terms and conditionsall the important terms and conditions, that I agreed withwhich I agreed upon with two of our new partners to establish a new business partnershipto form a new business relationship. The problem is thatThe problem is, I cannot clearly recall all thecan not really remember all those terms and conditions, so I need to recover those documentsget those documents back urgently. Therefore, I would like to askrequest you to find those documents for me and mail them to me as soon as possiblemail them to me at your earliest convenience. Also, please please chargedo not forget to charge the mailing cost tofrom my credit card that you already have on file. Yours faithfully, Lucas Foster
Why this response received Band 7.5
The letter fully addresses the situation, identifies the likely location of the papers, explains their importance, and makes a clear, appropriately formal request. Its main weakness is presentation and language polish: the response is one continuous block, while phrases such as ‘about a couple of days ago’ and ‘charge the mailing cost from my credit card’ sound awkward. Prioritise clear paragraphing and more natural collocations while retaining the strong specific detail.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose is immediately clear, all three bullet points are fully covered, and the formal request is supported with specific, relevant detail.
Add a direct contact detail or request for confirmation to make the proposed recovery process fully actionable.
Coherence and Cohesion
The information progresses logically from purpose and room details to importance and requested action, with clear linking throughout.
Separate the opening, explanation, and requested action into distinct paragraphs to make the letter easier to scan.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and suitably formal, including precise phrases such as ‘terms and conditions’ and ‘at your earliest convenience’, although several collocations are awkward.
Use more natural combinations such as ‘a few days ago’, ‘desk drawer’, and ‘charge the postage to my credit card’.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of complex structures is generally controlled, and the few tense and punctuation errors do not impede meaning.
Use the simple past for the completed loss and review comma placement around clauses to improve accuracy.
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 attended a meeting at a hotel. When you returned home, you found you had left some important papers at the hotel. Write a letter to the manager of the hotel. In your letter:
- say where you think you left the papers
- explain why they are so important
- tell the manager what you want him/her to do
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.