The cheapest marks on the page
General Training Task 1 is a letter. At least 150 words, about 20 minutes, and three bullet points you have to answer. The greeting and the sign-off take about ten seconds to write, and they are wrong in a huge number of letters. That is a strange place to lose marks, because unlike grammar or ideas, this part can simply be memorized once and then never thought about again.
First, work out which of the three letters it is
01Formal: you do not know the person's name
02Semi-formal: you know the name, not the person
03Informal: a friend or a family member
The three pairs to memorize
1Dear Sir or Madam,
Close with: Yours faithfully,
Example: Use when you have no name. Faithfully for a stranger.
2Dear Mr Smith, / Dear Ms Brown,
Close with: Yours sincerely,
Example: Use when the task gives you a name. Sincerely when you know who they are.
3Dear Anna, / Hi Tom,
Close with: Best wishes, / All the best, / Take care,
Example: A friend or family member. Never Yours faithfully here, it sounds like a bank letter.
4 opening and closing fixes
The mismatched pair
✕Dear Sir or Madam, ... Yours sincerely,
✓Dear Sir or Madam, ... Yours faithfully,
This is the most common error in the whole task. If you do not know the name, it is faithfully. If you do, it is sincerely. Learn it as one unit so you never have to think about it in the exam.
A first line that says nothing
✕How are you? I hope this letter finds you well. I am writing this letter to you today.
✓I am writing to complain about a washing machine I bought from your store last week.
Your first sentence should tell the reader the purpose. In a formal letter, skip the small talk completely. In an informal one, one friendly line is fine, then get to the point.
Tone that does not match the reader
✕Hi there! I'm writing 'cause my flight got cancelled and it's a real pain.
✓I am writing to request a refund for a flight that was cancelled on 3 March.
Formal letters use full forms (I am, do not, cannot) and neutral words. Short forms and casual words are fine for a friend and expensive in a complaint.
A missing bullet point
✕You wrote two lovely paragraphs and quietly skipped the third bullet.
✓One short paragraph per bullet, in the order the task gives them.
All three bullets must be covered. This is the most expensive mistake in the letter, and it does not feel like a mistake, because everything you did write was good.
The quick letter check
✓My greeting and my sign-off are a matching pair.
✓My first sentence says why I am writing.
✓All three bullet points are answered, roughly one paragraph each.
✓My tone is the same from the first line to the last.
✓I wrote at least 150 words.
✓I did not write any addresses. The task does not need them.
One thing General Training letters do that essays do not
A letter has a reader. That sounds obvious, but it changes everything you write. Before each paragraph, ask what this person needs to know and what you want them to do. A complaint should end with what you expect to happen. An invitation should end with a time and a place. A letter that gives information but never asks for anything feels unfinished, and the examiner feels it too.
Read next
Useful for General Training too: the 4 questions your IELTS examiner is secretly asking and 8 words to delete from your IELTS writing.
Practice a letter and see the four scores
A letter is marked on the same four criteria as an essay, so tone, structure, vocabulary and grammar all count. Write your next General Training letter in VoyaLang and see each score separately, with the corrections in your own sentences and a stronger version of your letter to learn from. Create a free account and check your next one in about a minute.
