IELTS General Training Writing Task 1: the letter, scored
IELTS General Training Writing Task 1 is a letter. How register and tone decide Band 6 vs 7, covering all three bullet points, with formal and informal models.
Plenty of people sitting General Training treat Task 1 like a warm-up email. Read the prompt, dash off a letter, save the real effort for the essay. Then the Writing band comes back under what the essay felt like, and the letter is where it leaked.
Task 1 is worth a third of your Writing score. The two tasks are averaged with Task 2 weighted double, so a weak letter next to a solid essay can pull the Writing band down half a point or more. This is a guide to IELTS General Training Writing Task 1: what the examiner marks in that letter, and where the half-band hides.
IELTS General Training Writing Task 1: a letter, not a graph
GT Task 1 gives you a situation and asks for a letter of at least 150 words in about 20 minutes. The prompt names who you're writing to and lists three things the letter has to do. Complain about a faulty product, and the three points might be: explain what you bought, describe the fault, say what you want done. Cover all three, in a letter that sounds like a real person wrote it.
It's scored on the same four criteria as the Academic Task 1 graph and the Task 2 essay: Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Equal weight, 25% each. Three of them behave much as they do everywhere else in Writing. Task Achievement is the one that changes. There's no data to report and no overview to write. The examiner is checking something else: whether the letter has a clear purpose, keeps the right tone for its reader, and covers and develops all three points. If you've drilled the Academic overview, park it. A letter has no overview, and the two Task 1s split apart right here.
Register is the choice that shapes everything
GT letter writing turns on one choice you make before the first sentence. It's register, and you settle it before you write a word. Who is the letter to?
| Register | Who you're writing to | Greeting | Sign-off | Style |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Formal | A stranger or an organisation: a bank, the council, a company, a newspaper | "Dear Sir or Madam," (name unknown) or "Dear Mr Smith," (name known) | "Yours faithfully," (unknown) / "Yours sincerely," (known) | No contractions, no slang, full sentences |
| Semi-formal | Someone you know in a formal-ish role: a landlord, a manager, a neighbour | "Dear Mr Jones," / "Dear Ms Lee," | "Yours sincerely," / "Best regards," | Polite, a little warmth, still no slang |
| Informal | A friend or a family member | "Dear Anna," / "Hi Tom," | "Best wishes," / "Take care," / "Love," | Contractions fine, chatty, phrasal verbs welcome |
Read the recipient straight off the prompt. "Write to the manager of a company" is formal, and you probably have no name, so it's "Dear Sir or Madam" paired with "Yours faithfully". "Write to a friend" is informal. "Write to your new neighbour" sits in the middle. The pairing catches people out: "Yours faithfully" goes with "Dear Sir or Madam", "Yours sincerely" goes with a name. Cross them and it's a small, visible slip.
Here's why register earns its own section. The band descriptors put tone right on the 6/7 line. At Band 6, the public IELTS Writing Task 1 band descriptors (updated May 2023) note "there may be minor inconsistencies in tone." At Band 7, "the tone is consistent and appropriate to the task." So the thing between a 6 and a 7 is often not your vocabulary or your grammar. It's one casual phrase that slid into a formal complaint, or a stiff textbook opening in a letter to an old friend. Pick the register, then hold it to the last line.
Task Achievement: cover all three points, and extend them
Two moves decide Task Achievement in a letter. Make the purpose clear in the opening line, and cover every point the prompt gives you, taking each one past a single sentence.
The descriptors are blunt about that second move. At Band 6, a GT letter has "all bullet points are covered and adequately highlighted." At Band 7, they're "covered and clearly highlighted but could be more fully or more appropriately illustrated or extended." Read the gap: at 6 you've mentioned all three, at 7 you've developed them with detail. Drop to Band 5 and "one or more may not be adequately covered." So the safe shape is one clean paragraph per point, each carrying a specific detail or example. That's what clears Band 6 and reaches toward 7.
Two smaller rules save marks. You can invent details freely: the prompt is a scenario, and made-up dates, names and reasons are expected, not penalised. And write at least 150 words. Going under is penalised directly, the same way it is in Academic Task 1.
Coherence and cohesion: paragraph the letter
Coherence and Cohesion rewards a letter the reader can follow without effort, and the shape almost writes itself. Greeting. A one-line opening that states why you're writing. One paragraph per point. A short closing line. Four or five short blocks, each doing one job.
Letters lose Coherence in two ways. They run all three points into a single dense paragraph, or they hook every sentence to the next with the same connector. Cohesive devices join ideas, they don't decorate them. The band descriptors reward that grouped shape: at Band 6 "information and ideas are generally arranged coherently and there is a clear overall progression," while at Band 7 they're "logically organised" with cohesive devices "used flexibly." And one format rule: the letter itself is prose. No bulleted lists inside it, however much the three prompt points tempt you to number them.
Lexical resource: the phrasebook, matched to the reader
GT letters lean on a set of functional phrases, and picking the register-appropriate one is most of Lexical Resource here. Openings, requests, complaints and apologies each come in a formal and an informal version.
| What you're doing | Formal | Informal |
|---|---|---|
| Opening | "I am writing to enquire about…" | "I just wanted to ask about…" |
| Making a request | "I would be grateful if you could…" | "Could you…?" |
| Complaining | "I am writing to express my dissatisfaction with…" | "I'm really not happy about…" |
| Apologising | "Please accept my apologies for…" | "I'm so sorry about…" |
| Closing | "I look forward to your prompt reply." | "Hope to hear from you soon!" |
Precision beats reaching for rare words. A formal complaint built from accurate, well-fitted phrases scores higher than one stuffed with idioms that miss. The descriptors even warn about it: at Band 6, a risk-taker who reaches wide gets "higher degrees of inaccuracy or inappropriacy." Match the phrase to the register, and the register to the reader.
Grammatical range: polite structures that stay accurate
Grammatical Range and Accuracy checks for a mix of simple and complex sentences, used accurately. Letters reward a few structures in particular. Conditionals and modals carry politeness ("I would appreciate it if you could…", "It would help if…"). A spread of tenses lets you explain what happened, what's happening now, and what you want next. But range only banks marks when it's accurate. The band line makes the target concrete: Band 6 uses "a mix of simple and complex sentence forms" but with "flexibility limited," while Band 7 wants "a variety of complex structures" used "with some flexibility and accuracy," with "error-free sentences frequent." A run of correct simple and complex sentences beats one ambitious construction that falls apart mid-clause. Reach for what you can land, then stretch.
The letter types you'll meet
Most GT Task 1 prompts are one of a handful of situations. A complaint about a faulty product or poor service. A request for information, time off, or a change. An application for a job or a course. An apology for a missed event or a mistake. An explanation of arrangements, or directions. An invitation or a thank-you to a friend. The register follows the reader, not the type: a complaint to a company is formal, an invitation to a friend is informal, a note to your manager is semi-formal.
Two models: a formal letter and an informal one
Take a common prompt. You bought a washing machine that stopped working; write to the store manager, say what you bought, explain the problem, and say what you want done. Here's a compact answer:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to complain about a washing machine I bought from your Oxford Street branch on 3 March, which has since developed a serious fault.
The machine stops halfway through a cycle and leaks water across the floor. This has happened four times in the past week, and on the last occasion it damaged the kitchen flooring. I still have the receipt and the warranty card, both of which confirm the purchase is covered.
I would be grateful if you could arrange for a replacement to be delivered, along with an engineer to assess the water damage. Given the inconvenience, I would also appreciate a reply within seven days.
Yours faithfully, [Full name]
Look at what each move does. The greeting is formal and unnamed, and it pairs with "Yours faithfully" at the end. The first sentence states the purpose in its opening words and folds in the first point at the same time, with invented specifics (the branch, the date) that cost nothing and lift Task Achievement. The middle paragraph covers the second point, the fault, and extends it with consequences. The last paragraph covers the third point, what you want, in polite conditional form. No contractions slip in anywhere. In the exam you'd stretch each paragraph a little further to clear 150 words comfortably, but the moves are all here.
Now flip the register. A friend is visiting your city; write to suggest what to do while they're there.
Hi Tom,
Great to hear you're finally coming over in May. I've been hoping you'd make it for ages.
You'll land right in the middle of the arts festival, so the city will be packed but brilliant. Stay the first weekend at least, and we can sort out a gallery day and a trip to the coast once you know your dates.
Let me know when your flights are booked and I'll take a couple of days off work.
Take care, [First name]
Same task, opposite register. A first-name greeting paired with "Take care,", contractions throughout, and everyday phrasal verbs like "sort out" that would jar in the complaint. The tone stays consistent, only pitched to a friend instead of a stranger. That consistency, in either direction, is the move the descriptors reward.
Drill one axis at a time, five minutes a day
A full letter spreads you across four criteria at once, so a returned "Band 6" rarely tells you which one lost the mark. Smaller drills pull them apart.
- Register drill. Take one prompt and write only the greeting, the opening line and the sign-off, three times: once formal, once semi-formal, once informal. Two minutes, and you're training the choice that moves the most marks.
- Point-cover drill. Write one sentence for each of the three prompt points, then a second sentence extending each. That's Task Achievement checked without writing a whole letter.
- Tone-sweep drill. Take a formal letter and mark every word a friend would use. Replace or cut. Register and Coherence in a single pass.
That's the idea behind IELTS Drills. Feedback comes back tagged to one Band Descriptor, so when a letter loses the half-band you can tell whether it went on tone, on a thin point, or on grammar, and you drill that one in five minutes a day.
Frequently asked questions
How long should the letter be, and how much time? At least 150 words, in about 20 minutes. Under 150 is penalised directly; over 20 minutes steals time from Task 2, which is worth double.
Formal or informal, how do I tell? By the reader. An unnamed official or an organisation means formal ("Dear Sir or Madam" / "Yours faithfully"). Someone named that you don't know well takes "Dear Mr/Ms X" / "Yours sincerely". A friend or relative is informal.
Can I make up the details? Yes. The prompt is a scenario, and specific invented dates, names and reasons are expected, and they help you extend the three points.
Do I write an address or a date at the top? No. Start at the greeting. IELTS letters skip the postal address block that a real letter would carry.
Can I use bullet points inside the letter? No. The prompt hands you three points to cover, but the letter itself is continuous prose in paragraphs.
Is GT Task 1 easier than Academic Task 1? Different, not easier. There's no graph to read, but tone and register are judged closely, and the criteria diverge only here between the two versions.
How many paragraphs? Four or five: the greeting, a one-line opening that states the purpose, one paragraph per point, and a short closing.
The bottom line
GT Task 1 is a letter worth a third of your Writing band, and the marks move in spots the essay-focused reader misses. Register first. Pick formal, semi-formal or informal from who you're writing to, and hold the tone to the last line, because that consistency is often the whole gap between Band 6 and Band 7. Then cover all three points and extend each one, keep the letter in clean paragraphs, and reach only for the phrases and structures you can use accurately. Before your next practice letter, write the greeting, the opening line and the sign-off first, and check the register matches the reader. With IELTS Drills, the feedback comes back tagged to the one axis holding the letter down, five minutes a day.
