10 Tips On Writing IELTS LettersDominic Cole's IELTS and Beyond

Navigation
IELTS letters 10 top tips

How should you write a letter in general training IELTS? Here are some tips to help you
maximise your band score so that your IELTS letters impress the examiner. A summary of
these tips would be that letter writing may hae its own conentions but so does IELTS ! so
whateer else you do" ma#e sure you answer the $uestion and use good English.
1. Make sure you answer the whole question
This is probably the most common mista#e. Each IELTS letter $uestion contains % bullet
points and you need to ma#e sure that you address all % points in your answer. If you leae
one of them out" you will be penalised on tas# response. A more detailed point is that you
need to ma#e sure that you include the appropriate amount of detail for each point ! this
may mean you need to write more about one topic and less about another.
If you li#e" go and isit my sample IELTS letter $uestions page and ma#e sure you can
identify the tas#s in each letter.
2. Think about who you are writing to
&erhaps the one complex thing about letter writing is that you need to be aware of register.
This means that you need to be able to write in a more formal style if the letter is to
someone you don't #now and in a less formal style to a friend. &art of the problem here is
that conentions differ in different countries and cultures. (ne sensible piece of adice is to
aim for a relatiely neutral style and don't try to be too formal or too informal.
10 tips on writing IELTS lettersDominic Cole's IELTS and Beyond http://www.dcielts.com/ielts-letters/ten-top-tips/
1 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
3. Think about the purpose(s) of the letter
)efore you start writing" you should thin# about what the purpose of the letter is. IELTS
letters tend to be $uite predictable and generally fall into one or more of these functions*
complaint
re$uest
explanation
apology
application
suggestion
This information helps you because you can then use the appropriate letter writing
ocabulary for each of those functions.
4. on!t forget to use varie" gra##ar
A common problem with letters is that candidates use language that is too simple. +ust as
in essays" there is a band score for grammatical range and accuracy. This means that een if
you are writing to a friend" you still need to use aried sentences. ,ou cannot -ust use short
and simple sentences.
$. %earn how to start a letter
.hen we write more formal letters" we tend to start with a sentence explaining exactly why
we are writing. A common phrase here is /I am writing to0.1. .e start li#e that because the
person doesn't #now us and needs to understand what the purpose of the letter is.
.hen we write to a friend" we normally start by tal#ing a little about our relationship in a
fairly general paragraph. A common phrase might be" /I was so pleased to hear from you
again. It's been ages since we'e seen one another01. It's important not to forget to do this
in IELTS letters as it shows the examiner you understand the type of letter you are writing.
&. %earn how to en" a letter
There are also conentional ways to end letters. If you are unsure how to do this" the best
adice is to thin# about what you expect to happen next. In a more formal letter where you
hae as#ed for some information" you might write*
)y contrast" in a letter to a friend who is coming to isit you" you might try*
/I loo# forward to hearing from you soon.1
2 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
,ou can learn some set phrases to help you do this but as I say the best adice is -ust to
thin# about what you expect to happen next.
'. (lan your letter
.hat? &lan a letter? .ell you may not bother in life" but IELTS is a ery peculiar form of life
and you should definitely spend time thin#ing about and organising your letter. This means
that you should thin# carefully about*
how many paragraphs you are going to use
what the main points to include are
what details you need to add
what ocabulary you need
). Make sure you write at least 1$* wor"s
This should be self2explanatory. ,ou will be penalised if you write less than 345 words and
my general adice is that you should aim for about 364 words. I say this because the
examiner may not count any words you hae directly copied form the $uestion.
+. ,he-k your spelling an" pun-tuation
&erhaps because letters are often less formal than essays" candidates fre$uently ma#e more
basic spelling and punctuation mista#es in letters. 7on't be one of those people* een if it
is an informal letter ma#e sure you use correct English. This means*
you may use short forms li#e /can't1 if it's an informal letter
you shouldn't use abbreiations li#e /cos1
be ery careful with spelling of common words li#e /beliee1 and /sincerely1
write in sentences with full stops and capital letters
1*. (ra-tise using stan"ar" letter writing phrases
Letters hae their own language to some extent. (ne way to improe your letter writing is to
loo# at sample IELTS letters and find phrases which you can use in your own letters.
.et #ore /0%T1 lessons in your inbo2
Enter your email address* Morelessons 7eliered by 8eed)urner
/I can't wait to see you. And don't forget to gie my loe to all your family.1
3 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
7
E-mail

3ou #ight also be intereste" in4
Sample IELTS -ob application letter
IELTS letter ! a wor# placement
Improe your IELTS spea#ing ! adice from a successful candidate
95 more tips and ideas for IELTS
IELTS letter* an apology
5ow to like it6 share it an" share it
&rint with &rint8riendly
&ost to 8aceboo#
96
&ost to 8aceboo#
&ost to Twitter
Send ia Shareaholic :ail
&ost to &interest
Add to Tumblr
&ost to ;oogle<
Add to Lin#edIn
7elate" %essons
IELTS letter* an apology
A letter of complaint* mobile phone
A holiday competition ! sample IELTS letter
=hanging your course ! a more formal letter
International food ! a more informal IELTS letter
Sample IELTS -ob application letter
IELTS letter ! a wor# placement
Improe your IELTS spea#ing ! adice from a successful candidate
95 more tips and ideas for IELTS
:otiation and IELTS
5ow to follow #e
Get daily lessons in your inbox (please don't forget to open the confirmation email) or
follow me on Twitter or Facebook
27 Like Like Send Send
4 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
Improve your IELTS vocabulary Improve your IELTS vocabulary
, letter, tips
< >
22 Responses to IELTS letters 10 top tips
Kasthuri June 10, 2011 at 12:50 pm #
This too was really helpful. Thank you very much. You are the BEST Sir !
Thanks Dominic for leaving us with this information for easy
access to tackle ielts papars. October 24, 2011 at 12:09 pm #
Dcielts.com
CINDY November 13, 2011 at 9:10 pm #
SIR,
PLEASE WHAT IS THE TRICK IN GENERAL TRAINING READING AND WRITING? I
NEED A 6.5 BUT GOT 6 IN BOTH.INTERESTINGLY I DID ACADEMIC MODULE AND
GOT A 6,5 IN READING AND 7.5 IN WRITING.I KEEP WONDERING WHAT ACTUALLY
WENT WRONG.
5 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
Dominic Cole November 27, 2011 at 7:13 pm #
Wow. A strange one. How on earth did you manage to do better in
academic reading than general training reading?!?! I cant help you there. The
skills are the same but the GT passages should be quite a bit more
straightforward.
On the writing, the difference is in the letter format. I have known good candidates
go wrong with that largely because they dont address all the parts of the
question.
alia January 20, 2012 at 12:44 pm #
Dear Cole,,,
Thank you so much for such a golden advice .
once again many thanks
alia
Ibrahim Turay July 18, 2012 at 11:07 pm #
Hi Mr Dominic,
Is the letter writing aspect meant for both general and academic IELTS candidates?
with regards
Ibrahim Turay.
Dominic Cole July 18, 2012 at 11:52 pm #
Hi
The letter only appears in general training.
Mohei August 8, 2012 at 5:59 pm #
Good day,
6 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
Dear Mr Dominic,
First of all I want to thank you for this tips.
Im writing this comment to complaint about the page design, as I can not find a links to
simples to explain the idea of each tip, or even practices.
But anyhow thank you very much for this useful tips.
Kind regards
Dominic Cole August 8, 2012 at 6:05 pm #
Fair comment. I am in fact working on the site design at the moment and
at some time the posts will all neatly link together there are currently over 250
lessons so this will take some time though. The idea is for the site to become a
complete online course and not just another blog. Can I suggest that you visit the
front page and look through the reading/writing/listening pages there you will find
most of the important lessons catalogued there.
Mohamed August 17, 2012 at 3:44 pm #
Hi CINDY,
I had a same experience. Unlike most people who think that GT is much more easier ,
especially
in Reading I think differenly. I think that because the GT is much more tricky. You think
that you
understand the question well while answering wrongly. In scoring as you know there is
not
important you already know sophisticated/difficulty vaocabularies. What is important is
the right answer.
By contrast, in Academic IELTS you hardly find those questions focusing on tricking
candidates. Instead, they want to focus on vocabularies.
My suggestion is in GT we should not answer questions hastily . And always should
know that in
IELTS there is never very easy question.
joanne October 27, 2012 at 10:21 pm #
7 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
Hi,
Im really thankful for all your valuable tips for IELTS preparation.
One quick question, do we need to write in paragraph when writing a letter? Thanks.
Rohit February 26, 2013 at 5:21 pm #
Hi Dominic,
I would like to ask you about Tip no. 6.
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Sometimes, I have seen on internet that people have used comma after the above
mentioned sentence like given below:
I look forward to hearing from you soon,
Yours faithfully,
.. ..
Please let me know which is better and correct from IELTS point of view.
Thanks,
Rohit
Dominic Cole February 26, 2013 at 5:36 pm #
It all depends whether it is in a complete sentence and what comes next.
Send me some examples and i would be happy to comment
Letter Writing Task:
Recently stay in a hotel. The heating system in the room was not working.
Write a letter to the manager of the hotel. In your letter:
give details of what went wrong
explain what you had to do to overcome the problem at the time
say what action you would like the manager to take

8 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
Dear Sir,
.
I am shocked by this terrible service. This is not what anyone expects for
$600 a night! To compensate me for this inconvenience, I would like to ask a
full refund of my money and offer me a free, more comfortable stay in one of
your finer suites. If not, I am prepared to take my complaint to a higher
authority.
I look forward to hearing from you at the earliest,
Yours faithfully,
_______ _______
This is a great question I now understand what you mean.
Ive just spent a fair while researching it. Like you, I have found
examples with commas, full stops and no punctuation at all.
My first instinct, and best answer, is that you need a full stop as what
you are writing here is a complete sentence. A very strong argument
for this is that you need a capital letter for Yours sincerely and Yours
faithfully and this would be entirely inappropriate with a comma before
it.
I would add though that I have found what I would regard as good
examples with commas. With regards to IELTS, I would say relax and
that either variant would do. I say partly because letter writing
conventions (and this is part of letter writing conventions) vary around
the world and IELTS examiners are going to be relaxed about accepting
different conventions because IELTS is such an I(international ELTS)
exam. The one point you do need to get right is the level of formality of
the way you end the letter: it would be a problem if you ended an
informal letter to a friend with Yours faithfully, for example.
Thanks Dominic!
I have scored 6.0 in Writing when I have given my exam on Feb.
02, 2013 and now I am practicing a lot as I have to give the exam
again and would like to score at least 7.0 in each.
Also, my weakest part is Speaking in which I scored 5.5. Can you
9 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
suggest anything how should I improve my speaking so that I can
reach at least 7.0.
Do you have any material to prepare for Speaking test?
I have read your profile on this website and found that you are a
freelance teacher. Do you give any online tuition service
overseas so that I can prepare for the speaking part at least?
Hi Rohit
There is quite a big step from 5.5 to 7.0 in speaking and, yes, I do think that you should
approach a teacher. I will be teaching myself from June, but life in China doesnt make
that practical for me just yet.
Friday/Saturday this week (depending on where you are in the world) I will be posting
the details of Jan a teacher based in Melbourne, Australia and she does specialise
in Skype and speaking. The time zone may not be great perhaps for you but heres
hoping.
Thanks Dominic! I will contact Jan.
saeed March 8, 2013 at 6:25 am #
Where can i get general trainings reading and writing practices which actually
appeared in exams?
10 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
Leave a Reply
Name
Email (will not be published)
Website
User:
Dominic Cole March 8, 2013 at 6:32 am #
The only source for this are the Cambridge exam books 1-8. Be careful
with internet sites that give you recent questions, they may be remembered well,
they may not be.
prashant pathak March 27, 2013 at 5:09 pm #
sir, i am lagging in listening section. I am not able to answer the multiple
question as well as mapping. Besides this i use to listen a lot of stuff of English.
thanks.
Dominic Cole March 28, 2013 at 9:26 am #
Another listening coming today with a map.
11 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
Login
Pass:
Forgot?
Register
Get daily lessons
Get free daily updates to Dominic Cole's IELTS Blog by Email
How to follow me
Get daily lessons in your inbox (please don't forget to open the confirmation email) or follow me on Twitter or
Facebook
E-mail

IELTS resources and teachers
Band score calculator
IELTS directory
IELTS tutor service
Where people visit most
Listening tests
IELTS Vocabulary
IELTS writing task 2 essays
Downloads
Academic Word List Exercises
Academic task 1
IELTS Reading
IELTS Writing
IELTS speaking questions part 2
IELTS Listening
Subscribers
Login with Facebook Login with Facebook
12 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55
[site_copyright]
[site_credit]
How to contact me
Facebook page
Twitter page
Email contact
QQ
13 of 13 01.03.2014 22:55

10 Tips On Writing IELTS LettersDominic Cole's IELTS and Beyond

Enviado por

Dados do documento

Título original

Direitos autorais

Formatos disponíveis

Compartilhar este documento

Compartilhar ou incorporar documento

Opções de compartilhamento

Você considera este documento útil?

Este conteúdo é inapropriado?

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

10 Tips On Writing IELTS LettersDominic Cole's IELTS and Beyond

Enviado por

Direitos autorais:

Formatos disponíveis

Navigation

IELTS letters 10 top tips

10 tips on writing IELTS lettersDominic Cole's IELTS and Beyond http://www.dcielts.com/ielts-letters/ten-top-tips/

Você também pode gostar