There were some really good collocations and phrases in the letter that I wrote last Sunday. Note them down, even if you're not doing the General Training test.
- recommend someone for something
- work closely with someone
- provide a reference
- highly qualified
- have significant (sales, teaching, management) experience
- to be given a post / job / position
- demonstrate skills
- exceptional skills
- organisation skills
- team building skills
- describe someone as (dedicated, hard-working, enthusiastic)
- professionalism in (e.g. in the classroom, in her job, in the workplace)
- commitment to something
- the perfect candidate ('ideal candidate' is another common collocation)
- If you have any further questions
- do not hesitate to contact me
Dear Simon, does writing a letter also have a similar 13-sentence mind picture like the one you introduced for writing task 2, which I find very useful and I can almost immediately apply it in my articles. Hope you can introduce some equally useful tips for General Training Task 1 - Letter Writing. thanks
Posted by: Sabrina from Hongkong | Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 04:03
@Sabrina
http://ielts-simon.com/ielts-help-and-english-pr/2016/11/ielts-general-writing-task-1-video-free.html
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/writing-help/how-to-write-a-business-letter
It is important to cover all items specified in the task, possibly by having a separate paragraph for each one. The other issue is to decide whether a formal business letter is required, or something more informal, as the opening and closing, and also the style of the language, often differ.
Posted by: sunita | Tuesday, April 10, 2018 at 21:00
Good question Sabrina.
I don't think I've ever specified the exact number of sentences for the GT letter task. However, I suppose I usually write 3 main paragraphs (which cover the 3 bullet points in each task). Each main paragraph will contain 2 or maybe 3 sentences, and I usually put a greeting sentence at the start and an 'ending' sentence at the end.
So, you could aim for a 1,2,2,2,1 structure.
I hope this helps!
Posted by: Simon | Wednesday, April 11, 2018 at 11:43