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Simone Braverman

Simone Braverman is the founder of IELTS-Blog.com and the author of several renowned IELTS preparation books, including Ace the IELTS, Target Band 7, the High Scorer's Choice practice test series, and IELTS Success Formula. Since 2005, Simone has been committed to making IELTS preparation accessible and effective through her books and online resources. Her work has helped 100,000's of students worldwide achieve their target scores and live their dream lives. When Simone isn't working on her next IELTS book, video lesson, or coaching, she enjoys playing the guitar or rollerblading.

IELTS Letter, topic: Asking for information about an executive event

You are organizing an executive event for the company you work for.
Task: Write a letter to the person in charge of a venue that you are considering for the event and ask for detailed information regarding dates, services and costs.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to ask for information about organizing an executive event at your venue.

My name is Marcio, I work for a multinational company, and we need to prepare an event that will be held on December 17. I would like to obtain the information :

1. How many people can your club ?
2. What kind of food you serve?
3. Is there any special service ?
4. What time can we start the event?
5. Do you have any kind of “animation service” to offer?
6. How much do you charge for your services?
7. Do you offer any transportation?
8. Is there anything else included in your ?

I to receive this information before October, because I need to prepare the department in charge of the event and invite the participants. You can send me this information via fax, to the number +55 (21) 3422-9559, or email me at : marciomarinho@gmail.com. I am confident that your company will provide us with the best type of service we need, based on abundance of good reviews about your company.

Yours faithfully,
Marcio Marinho

This is a good letter. It covers the task, is correctly structured, and you used the appropriate style and vocabulary. There are some sentences that need a change in structure (see comments underlined in blue) and there are also repetitions of the same word, which should be avoided. Overall, this looks like a Band 6.5 – 7 letter.

Click here to see more IELTS letters of band 7

following
contain
do
available for the disabled
the word service repeats too many times – use a synonym
would like

Some typical mistakes in the IELTS test I’ve seen this week

This week I have noticed some very common mistakes that students made and wrote to tell me about. I also know that many students have their exam coming on 21st of February and this little warning can (hopefully) save them some marks.

Firstly, many people shift the answers on the Answer Sheet. In a rush it can easily happen and it means that all of your hard work goes down the drain. If the answer to the question 24 is written in the box of the question 25, you get 0 marks for it, plain and simple. This brings me to another point: try practicing at home copying answers to the Answer Sheet – that way you won’t get confused during your exam.

Secondly, many people don’t make the essay/letter/report long enough. Guys, that can cost a whole Band (I don’t know exactly how much they deduct but that is my guess). Counting words is easy and you don’t have to count every single word to get a very close estimate of how many words you’ve written.

Statistically speaking, a hand-written line has about 9 words. If you need proof, have a look at any of your essays and count how many words per line you write. The requirement for an essay is at least 250 words, which equals 28 lines and you should count the lines, not the words. Any letter or report should be at least 150 words long, that’s 17 lines.

That’s it for today, good luck to everyone, go hit the books!