An explanation

You are staying in rented accommodation. You recently held a party to celebrate your birthday. Several neighbours have complained about the noise to your landlord.

Write a letter to your landlord. In your letter:

• apologise for the disturbance
• explain the situation
• say how you will remedy the situation

You should write at least 150 words.

You do NOT need to write your own address.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear __________

Formal IELTS letter questions

A complaint

You have just bought a new mobile phone from a website on the internet. When it was delivered, the phone was faulty.

Write a letter to the website. In the letter:

• introduce yourself
• explain the situation
• state what action you want to be taken

You should write at least 150 words.

You do NOT need to write your own address.

Begin your letter as follows:

Dear __________

Reading the question

You have just bought a new mobile phone from a website on the internet. When it was delivered, the phone was faulty.

Write a letter to the website. In the letter:

• introduce yourself
• explain the situation
• state what action you want to be taken

Answer all parts of the question

The first point to see is that this question asks you to write about 3 different points. You must remember that it is not enough to say what the problem is, but you must also say who you are and what you want to happen next.

Think about what the main reason of the letter is – it’s a letter of complaint

Most IELTS letters have a function: explaining/apologising etc. This letter is really just a letter of complaint and that means you need to use some good complaining language.

Think about who you are writing to

It is always important to think about who you are writing to,as that will tell you whether you need to use more formal or less formal language. You should see here that you are writing to someone you don’t know and that it is quite a business-y letter – that means you need some more formal language.