You made a friend when you visited another city a few months ago. This friend has come to your city for some work and will stay for another week. You want to invite this friend to your home for dinner. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter: - express how you feel about him/her visiting your city - invite the friend to your home for dinner - give location and date - when you would want him/her to come
Sample Response
Dear Cane,
I'm so glad to know that you're in my city for workcurrently visiting my city for some work. I also hope that you're managing to complete your work smoothlydo your work without any trouble. I'm reallyso looking forward to meeting you.
I have wantedhad always wanted to invite you to visit me and my city after meeting you about six6 months ago. However, becauseBut because of my busy work schedule, I haven’t been able to do so yetcouldn’t do so yet. But nowBut, now that you are already in my city, I don’t really want to let this opportunity passlet pass this opportunity to invite you. In fact, I want to invite you to my home to have dinner togetherin order to enjoy some dinner with me next Saturday, 20 Septembernext Saturday which would be the 20th of September.
As for my location, I live only about a 15-minute drive away from your hotel. All you need to do is head westhead towards the west on Highway 9 and drive about 10 minutes to reach Edmond Street. After reaching Edmond Street, drive about 5 minutes on Fuller Roadroad northtowards the north until you reach the midway mall. My home is right behind the mall. But, don’t hesitate to call me if you've any trouble finding my location.
Hope to see you soon then!
Warm wishes,
Peter
Why this response received Band 7.5
The letter achieves its friendly purpose clearly, covers the requested invitation and location details, and gives especially practical directions. Its main limitation is that the requested arrival time is left implicit rather than stated, while a few awkward expressions reduce polish; the highest-priority improvement is to add a precise dinner time and revise unnatural phrases without losing the warm, direct tone.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The invitation, date, location, warm reaction, and intended day are all clear, although the exact arrival time is not specified.
State a precise time for dinner and briefly indicate whether the proposed date suits the friend.
Coherence and Cohesion
The letter progresses logically from greeting and invitation to detailed directions, with clear paragraphing and easy-to-follow sequencing.
Reduce repetitive openings with 'But' and connect the invitation details more smoothly within the second paragraph.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is sufficiently varied and specific, particularly in the directions, but several collocations are not fully natural.
Use more idiomatic phrases such as 'let this opportunity pass' and 'have dinner together'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of simple and complex sentences is handled with good overall control, despite occasional tense and phrasing slips.
Refine tense choices in sentences such as 'I couldn't do so yet' and check capitalization in place names.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You made a friend when you visited another city a few months ago. This friend has come to your city for some work and will stay for another week. You want to invite this friend to your home for dinner. Write a letter to your friend. In your letter:
- express how you feel about him/her visiting your city
- invite the friend to your home for dinner
- give location and date
- when you would want him/her to come
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.