General Writing Sample Task 1 #82

Writing Tip

You can write more than 150 words for Task 1 or more than the 250 words for Task 2, but you can't write less. You will lose points if you have less than the assigned number of words in your letter.

You should spend about 20 minutes on this task.

You work for a company. You have seen some information online about a training course that would be useful for your work.

Write a letter to your manager. In your letter

  • give details of the course
  • say how the course would be useful
  • explain how the company could help you do this course.

Write at least 150 words.

Model answer

Dear Martin

I have recently become aware of a course called Social Media Marketing Essentials and I am writing to ask for your support in taking this course. It is a five-day intensive program being offered by the Business Leadership Association and it starts on Monday 15 February. I believe the course would be of great benefit to our company as we have been recently considering how to build up our social media presence and attract more customers online. After reading reviews by former participants, I think this Social Media course will help me professionally in my capacity as Communications Manager and make a real difference to our company.

For these reasons, I am requesting paid leave from 15-20 February to attend the course. It would be helpful if other team members did not take leave at this time; so far nobody else has applied. I believe this will not be a particularly busy time at work, but I am prepared to spend some time working on those evenings if needed.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Best wishes
Neil MacFarlane

(183 words)


Dear readers,

This is to inform you that we have moved to a new domain, https://www.ielts-writing.info/EXAM/.

Our old domain, https://www.ielts-exam.net/ will remain active till the time we migrate all our content to the new domain.

We look forward to your continuing support.