You would like to participate in a work-related seminar in another country. Write a letter to the person in charge of the seminar. In your letter: - ask for information about the seminar dates - ask for details of the programme - ask about accommodation - ask about the cost
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am keen to participatepartake in the seminar you are organisingyou are going to organise next month in Finland. I hope to receiveI am hoping to get further information about it to confirmfinalise my participation. I am Raj Muthuraman and work asI am Raj Muthuraman, working as a senior architect at BT Financial Group in India. Currently, I am managing a research project- ‘Failure and Recovery of Technical Orchestration’, for the company and I believe your symposium on Enterprise Architecture Seminar would be a great help to me. However, the event invitation I receivedthe invitation I received for the event did not confirm the dates as they were still being finalised. Can you confirm the schedule and provide an agenda for the event so that I can plan ahead? Also, can you suggest some good hotels in the area with their approximate rateswith an indicative cost? That will help me in planning my travel, accommodation and the cost of the trip. It would be great if you could send me the requested details at your earliest convenience, preferablyat your earliest preferably by the end of this week by fax or email. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Yours faithfully, Raj Muthuraman
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter clearly establishes the writer's professional relevance and asks useful questions about dates, the agenda, nearby hotels, and accommodation prices in an appropriately formal tone. Its main limitation is incomplete treatment of cost because it requests hotel rates without asking about the seminar fee or what registration includes. The priority is to request an itemised breakdown of seminar and accommodation costs while presenting each enquiry in a separate paragraph.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The dates, programme, and accommodation requests are clear and relevant, but the seminar's own cost is not directly requested.
Ask for the registration fee, what it includes, any payment deadline, and estimated hotel prices so the full cost bullet is covered.
Coherence and Cohesion
The purpose and questions progress logically, but the single-paragraph format compresses professional background and four separate enquiries together.
Use one brief context paragraph followed by grouped questions about schedule and programme, then accommodation and all associated costs.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is flexible and suitably professional, though a few phrases such as 'partake', 'indicative cost', and the seminar title are awkward.
Use natural expressions such as 'attend the seminar', 'estimated room rates', 'registration fee', and 'detailed programme'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentences and polite questions are generally well controlled, with occasional punctuation and phrase-structure problems.
Add punctuation around 'at your earliest convenience' and simplify the sentence describing the research project and seminar relevance.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You would like to participate in a work-related seminar in another country. Write a letter to the person in charge of the seminar. In your letter:
- ask for information about the seminar dates
- ask for details of the programme
- ask about accommodation
- ask about the cost
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.