IELTS General Writing: informal letter

I wrote the following letter with some of my students here in Manchester. It contains some great examples of informal phrases. Can you guess what the full question was?

Comments

[Amin]

Dear Mr. Simon

Thank you very much for your great website.

From yesterday, I could not access to other pages of each page. How can I access to them?

Best regards

[singh]

pardon me sir

i am preparing for my IELTS
but one serious problem i have in my writing task 2 that i am still achieving 6.5 score only
what i have to do for reaching 7.5

( my problem is that i always use big & difficult words that i think is reason for this

can you tell me that (should i have to add a logical ideas in my body paragraphs
plz plz plz plz plz plz plz plz
reply sir

[Aria]

The question can be:

"Write an informal letter to one of your friend and,
* Explain the reason of your move to the new place.
* Describe your new place.
* Invite your friend to visit your new place."

[Braulio]

Singh,

If you dont mind,but my advice to you is: Focus on the words you already know. We (students) think that we should try to impress the examiner writing "not common words", but dont you think they know this? This attempt of trying to sound a "vocabulary-man" would make us commit terrible mistakes,or sometimes the word would be misused (a native speaker wouldnt use the word ). After reading Simon's notes, he makes clear that we dont need this method to achieve a greater score . What we actually need to do is to answer the question 100%, using words related to the topic and not committing grammar mistakes.

Best of luck on your exam,

Braulio

[Leo]

Write a letter on one friend to notify that you have moved to a new apartment.

1. explain the reason.
2. describe the new apartment.
3. invite your friend to visit your new apartment.

[singh]

thank you bro braulio

for best wishes i will do my best in my exam

:)

[Ajay Sharma]

Hi Simon

Write a letter to your friend that you shifted to another flat
Describe the reason why you shifted
Describe the new flat and invite him to your new flat

[Braulio]

Singh,

No worries mate. I believe you will perform well, just trust in yourself!!

Braulio

[Evelyn]

Hi Simon,

I think in the beginning of the fourth paragraph, "If you EVERY fancy a trip to London", should be: "If you EVER fancy a trip to London".

And my guess is,

You have recently moved to a new place. Write a letter to your friend.
In the letter, Describe
why you have moved,
where the house is,
and invite him/her to pay a visit.

Regards,

Evelyn

[Simon]

FROM SIMON:

Everyone guessed correctly - the task was to write to a friend to explain that you had moved house (explain why, describe the new place, invite your friend to come and stay).

NOTE: Evelyn noticed my spelling mistake - I wrote 'every' instead of 'ever' in the last paragraph. I'll change that in a moment. Well spotted Evelyn!

[Martin]

Hi Simon,

I've just realized that students can also do this kind of analysis or "backward exercise" when proofreading their Task2 essays and/or speaking Part2 descriptions. I think this is the ideal way to figure out by themselves whether they have answered all the questions from the task and avoid unnecessary and/or irrelevant ideas.

Cheers,
Martin

[Simon]

Hi Martin,

Yes, I think I'll be using this kind of task more often with my students.

[mahshid]

It should be an informal letter for a friend/neighbor,in order to inform her/him from moving house.

[vijay laxmi]

I'm preparing for ielts for the first time

[Serg]

Thank you. Good example.

[nalintha ekanayake]

Hi Simon,
Your advice is very helpful to us.
For general writing task 2,in some books it says to use better vocabulary.So instead of using "difficult to remember words", if we use similar meaning words tht we use in normally, will that reduce our marks?
eg: use "essential" instead of "Vital"
thnks
Nalintha

[Jian Liu]

The question should be that you moved a new house recently, you need to describe:
1. Why do you decide to move;
2. Where is the your new house/apartment;
3. What can you do there.

[Khaled Said]

1.Reason for moving
2.Describe of the new place
3.Invite to visit to the new place

[Masoud]

Hi Mr.Simon
Here is my suggestion for the title of this practice:
You have moved from your city recently and have rented a new house there. Write a letter to your friend and in your letter:
* explain the reason that why you have moved to a new city.
* describe how is your new house.
* invite your friend to come and stay in your new home.