You are organising a trip to the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales for a group of students from Perth in Western Australia. Write to the manager of Student Hostel Services. In your letter explain: - when you want to visit the Snowy Mountains - how long you will stay - how many students are in your group and what accommodation you will require
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am a student at St Mary's College in Perth, Western Australia, and I am planning to go on a trip to the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales with a few classmatesa few other classmates of mine. We would like to stay in your hostel and would appreciate your assistance with the bookingappreciate your help regarding this. We are planning to stay at your hostel from 4th June to 11th June 2025. We will be ten students in total and we need accommodation for everyoneaccommodation facilities for all. We would need five roomsexpect five rooms, each with an attached bathroom and aroom heater. Moreover, we would like to have cooking facilities, ascooking facilities as a few of us would like to cook our own mealscook us meals. Our groupteam would primarily explore the Snowy Mountains area and godo skiing. In addition, we wouldHowever, we would visit a few other places nearbybe in a few other places nearby to exploretravel the whole area. Any recommendationsrecommendation would be highly appreciated. It would be great if you could inform me of the availabilityinform the availability of the rooms between 4th and 11th JuneJanuary. I would also ask about the costrequest the cost of the rooms and details of the facilities includeddetails of the included facilities. I hope to receive the information soon. Yours faithfully, Ashesha Weerasinghe
Why this response received Band 6.5
The letter has a clear purpose, suitable formal tone, and detailed coverage of the group size and accommodation requirements. Its main limitation is a serious date inconsistency: the planned stay is given as 4–11 June 2025, but room availability is later requested for 4–11 January. Prioritise checking that the visit dates remain identical throughout, then trim less essential sightseeing detail to keep the request focused.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All bullet points are developed with relevant detail, but the contradictory June and January dates create uncertainty about the requested stay.
State one consistent arrival and departure period and explicitly confirm the seven-night duration.
Coherence and Cohesion
The letter progresses logically from purpose and dates to accommodation, activities, and final requests, though some transitions are loosely used.
Group the core booking details together and place optional recommendations after the availability and price request.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is adequate and appropriately formal, but several collocations such as ‘cook us meals’, ‘do skiing’, and ‘inform the availability’ are unnatural.
Use natural phrases including ‘cook our own meals’, ‘go skiing’, ‘confirm availability’, and ‘provide the room rates’.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The letter uses varied structures and remains clear, despite recurring article, preposition, pronoun, and clause-construction errors.
Simplify sentences describing activities and requests, and proofread each verb for its required preposition or object.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You are organising a trip to the Snowy Mountains in New South Wales for a group of students from Perth in Western Australia. Write to the manager of Student Hostel Services. In your letter explain:
- when you want to visit the Snowy Mountains
- how long you will stay
- how many students are in your group and what accommodation you will require
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.