Writing
Formal, semi-formal or informal, and why choosing wrongly costs marks even when the English is accurate. With a practice exercise.
The IELTS General Training Task 1 letter asks you to write at least 150 words in twenty minutes. The difficulty is not usually the language. It is register: deciding how formal the letter should be, and then staying consistent for the whole of it.
Examiners see accurate, well organised letters lose marks because the writer opened with Dear Sir or Madam and then wrote in the style of a message to a friend. The register is decided by who you are writing to, and the task tells you.
Register
Three levels, decided by your relationship with the reader, not by the subject.
You do not know the person, and often you do not know their name either. This covers writing to a company, a council, or a manager you have never met. Open with Dear Sir or Madam and close with Yours faithfully.
You know the person, but not as a friend. This covers a landlord, a neighbour, a colleague (someone you work with) or a tutor. Open with Dear Mr Patel and close with Yours sincerely.
A friend or a family member. Open with Dear Sam or Hi Sam and close with Best wishes, All the best or See you soon.
The commonest mistake is to start formally and then become more casual as the letter goes on. Short forms such as I'm and don't, everyday two-word verbs, and exclamation marks all belong in an informal letter, and they lower the mark in a formal one.
The task gives you three things to include. Missing one limits your Task Achievement band no matter how good the English is.
At least 150 words in about twenty minutes. Task 2 carries twice the marks, so do not spend longer than that here.
Method
Six steps that keep you inside the time.
Before you write anything, read who the letter is to and decide formal, semi-formal or informal. Everything else follows from that.
Three bullet points, three body paragraphs, plus an opening line and a closing line. That structure fits 150 to 200 words comfortably.
The first line says why you are writing. I am writing to complain about, or I am writing to ask whether. Do not build up to it.
Choose formal or informal phrasing and stay with it. If you would not say it to a stranger, it does not belong in a formal letter.
Yours faithfully when you opened Dear Sir or Madam. Yours sincerely when you used their name. Best wishes for a friend.
Read it back for register slips, missing bullet points and the word count. Two minutes here is worth more than two extra sentences.
Practice
For each task, decide which register the letter should use.
Ask one question: what is my relationship with the person reading this letter?
If you have never met them and are writing to an organisation, it is formal. If you know them in a practical or working capacity, it is semi-formal. If they are a friend or family, it is informal.
The subject does not decide the register. You can complain informally to a friend and make a friendly request to a company you have never contacted.
1You are writing to the manager of a company whose product arrived damaged. You have not dealt with them before.
Formal. You are writing to a company you have never dealt with, so you do not know the person who will read the letter. Open with Dear Sir or Madam and close with Yours faithfully.
2You are writing to your landlord, whom you have met several times, asking for a repair.
Semi-formal. A landlord is someone you know, but you are writing about a practical matter, not as a friend. Use their name, keep the tone polite and businesslike, and close with Yours sincerely.
3You are writing to a friend who has just moved overseas, to tell them your news.
Informal. Short forms such as I'm and don't, everyday vocabulary and a friendly ending are all correct when you write to a friend. A formal opening would be wrong here.
4You are writing to the local council to object to a new car park.
Formal. A council is a public organisation, and you have no personal relationship with the person who reads the letter. Note that feeling angry about something does not make the letter informal.
5You are writing to a colleague you sit next to, asking them to cover a shift.
Semi-formal. A colleague is someone you know, but work is a professional situation rather than a social one. When you know the person and the reason for writing is professional, semi-formal is the safest choice.
6You are writing to a course tutor you have emailed twice, asking to postpone an assignment.
Semi-formal. You know who your tutor is and you have written to them before, but the situation is still a professional one. Use their name, and close with Yours sincerely.
Register is one of the hardest things to judge in your own writing, because it sounds correct to the person who wrote it. This is where an examiner reading your work makes the biggest difference.
The complete IELTS course on IELTStestONLINE has video lessons on every question type, many more exercises like this one, and your own support tutor you can ask when an answer does not make sense. Take a look at the complete course
Choosing the register is the first decision. Whether you then sustain it for 150 words is what the examiner is marking, and that is not something an exercise can tell you.
IELTStestONLINE keeps every score you get in one place, gives you an estimated band as you work, and assesses your writing and speaking against the four criteria so you can see where you stand before test day. See what full membership includes
At least 150 words, written in about twenty minutes. There is no upper limit, but writing much more than 200 words takes time away from Task 2, which is worth twice the marks.
Yes. An under-length answer is penalised in Task Achievement, and examiners count when a script looks short.
Only for a formal letter where you do not know the reader's name. If the task gives you a name, use it, and close with Yours sincerely rather than Yours faithfully.
Yes, and you usually have to. The task gives you a situation and three bullet points; the specifics are for you to supply, and inventing them sensibly is expected.
No. Academic Task 1 asks you to describe a chart, graph, table, map or process instead. The letter is General Training only.
Full membership
You can learn the rules from this page. What you cannot do is tell whether your own letter sustains the right tone for 150 words, because it always sounds right to the person who wrote it.
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