IELTS General Writing: some informal phrases

The phrases below make the letter in this lesson a bit more friendly / informal:

• my place (meaning 'my house')
• a few things (avoid the word 'thing' in more formal contexts)
• pick up the keys (meaning 'collect')
• pop round (meaning 'visit')
• a bit warmer ('bit' is informal, use 'little' if you want to sound more formal)
• worth checking out (meaning 'a good idea to go there')

Comments

[Summer]

Hi，Simon,

Thank you for your esssays.I have a problem with the introduction of task 1.I used to change some words of the title when I write the frist sentence,

e.g.
TITLE: The graph shows the proportion of population aged 65 snd over between 1940 to 2040 in three different countries.
MINE:the chart illustrate the difference in terms of the percentage of people aged 65 and above in Japan sweden and USA.

but a teacher told me it is risk to use this simple way.
Can you give me some tips?

Thank you for you help !

[Albert]

Hi Simon, I have a question about this GT question:

In the question there is a sentence ‘You are about to go on vocation for a month.’, but in your sample letter’s opening, you didn’t mention ‘You are about to go on vocation for a month.’ Will this be OK? I mean, should we restate everything in the ‘background’ part of GT letters in our letter opening(to avoid ‘not fully response to the question’)? Or for GT letters, as long as we cover the three bullet points in the question, the examiner will consider it ‘fully response to the question’?

[Simon]

Hi Summer,

Just do your best to make your sentence different to the question. Do the introduction quickly, and don't worry too much about it - it doesn't contribute very much to your score.

...

Hi Albert,

I don't think you need to mention all of the background information. Your task is to cover the bullet points - that's what the examiner wants to see.

[Nanh]

Hi Simmon,
I have a question about writing task2 -academic writing. i hope it wont go off this topic:

In writing task 2, can we add data as supporting ideas?

E.g: In my opinion, children should not be allowed to have TVs in their private rooms as they are likely to watch violent movies....

and then i add data like:
"According to..., 80% children in US react violent after watching violent films...."

and i just made up the figure. can i do that?

[vivian]

hi, Simon
It's so good to find your website that is helpful to prepare the IELTS test. Following your lessons, I have more clear ideas about how to prepare the test well to achieve my goal, especially in speaking and writing. Above all, you gave me some clear answers to solve some of my confusion in the whole 4 parts. Thank you very much.

Now I have a question about the letter. I found it's hard to edit some story for to make the letter looks logical. For example, last week the task 1 is a complain letter about you missed the flight because of the problem of airport. From my experience, the airport always serves passengers well and I really have no idea what kind of problem can stop only you not other travellers who took the same flight.

So, how to edit the story well when I have no idea about the problems or some issues in the letter (eg.repair the house), although I know the format and tone of different type letters very well.