Guides / General Training letters
IELTS General Training Task 1: The Three Registers and When Each Applies
In IELTS General Training, Task 1 is a letter. You get about 20 minutes and you write at least 150 words. Most candidates spend that time worrying about vocabulary, and lose marks somewhere else entirely.
The first decision in a General Training letter is register: formal, semi-formal or informal. It is decided by the prompt, not by preference, and every later choice follows from it. A friendly letter written in formal English is as wrong as a complaint to a company written like a message to a friend.
This page shows how to read the register off the prompt, and gives a worked opening in each of the three.
What register means here
Register is the level of formality of your language. In a letter it shows in four places: the greeting, the contractions, the vocabulary, and the sign off. Those four have to agree with each other. A letter that opens "Dear Sir or Madam" and continues "I'd love to hear back" has mixed two registers in two lines, and mixed register is one of the easiest faults for a marker to see.
Task Achievement, one of the four marking criteria, asks whether you covered the bullet points and whether the tone is appropriate for the purpose and the reader. Consistent register is part of that judgement. It is not a separate criterion, but it is not decoration either.
Reading the register off the prompt
The prompt always tells you who the reader is. That single fact decides the register.
| The prompt says | Register | Greeting | Sign off |
|---|---|---|---|
| Write to the manager, the council, a company, an editor, and you are not given a name | Formal | Dear Sir or Madam | Yours faithfully |
| Write to your landlord, your manager, a colleague, a neighbour, and you are given a name | Semi-formal | Dear Mr Ahmed, Dear Ms Tran | Yours sincerely |
| Write to a friend, a family member, a former classmate | Informal | Dear Anna, Hi Daniel | Best wishes, Take care |
Two things to note. First, the convention taught for IELTS is that "Yours faithfully" pairs with "Dear Sir or Madam" and "Yours sincerely" pairs with a named reader. Keep the pair consistent and you will not be thinking about it in the exam.
Second, the middle row is where candidates lose most. A named reader in a professional relationship is not a friend, and it is not an anonymous institution either. Semi-formal is a real third option, not a compromise.
Formal: a complaint to a company
You recently bought a piece of equipment from a shop, and it stopped working after two weeks. Write a letter to the shop manager. In your letter, describe the item, explain what went wrong, and say what you want the manager to do.
A formal opening that works:
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to complain about a coffee machine which I purchased from your Oxford Road branch on 14 August and which has now stopped working. I would be grateful if you could arrange either a replacement or a full refund.
Look at what that does. It states the purpose in the first clause, which is what a formal letter is expected to do. It contains the requested outcome immediately, so a reader who stops after two sentences still knows what is wanted. There are no contractions. "I would be grateful if you could" is the standard polite request form, and it is worth memorising because it fits almost every formal prompt.
What to avoid in formal register: contractions such as "don't" and "I'm", phrasal verbs where a single verb exists ("put up with" rather than "tolerate"), exclamation marks, and any expression of feeling stronger than "I was disappointed".
Semi-formal: a request to a landlord
You have a problem with the heating in the flat you rent. Write a letter to your landlord, Mr Grant. In your letter, explain the problem, say how it is affecting you, and suggest a solution.
A semi-formal opening that works:
Dear Mr Grant, I hope you are well. I am writing about the heating in the flat at 12 Willow Court, which has not worked properly since the end of last week. The radiators in both bedrooms stay cold even when the system is switched on.
The difference from the formal letter is small but real. "I hope you are well" would be out of place in a complaint to an anonymous company and is entirely normal to someone you know by name. The rest stays controlled: full forms rather than contractions, neutral vocabulary, no informal phrasing.
Semi-formal is the register that rewards precision most, because it sits between two things candidates have practised. If you are unsure which side to lean towards, lean formal. An answer that is slightly too polite reads as careful. One that is too casual reads as a misjudgement of the reader.
Informal: news to a friend
You have recently moved to a new city. Write a letter to a friend. In your letter, describe the new city, explain why you moved, and invite your friend to visit.
An informal opening that works:
Dear Anna, Sorry it has taken me so long to write. I have finally moved to Valencia, and I am still unpacking boxes in a flat that is about half the size of my old one. It is worth it, though. The sea is a ten minute walk away.
Informal does not mean careless. Contractions are fine, and so are phrasal verbs and short sentences. What is not fine is slang, abbreviations from text messages, or errors excused as casual writing. Grammatical Range and Accuracy is marked exactly the same way in an informal letter as in a formal one.
Informal letters also need the same structure as the others: one paragraph per bullet point, plus an opening and a closing line. The friendly tone sits on top of that structure. It does not replace it.
The mistakes that cost the most
- Mixing registers. "Dear Sir or Madam" followed by "I can't wait to hear from you" is the most common version.
- Missing a bullet point. The three bullets are the content requirement. Covering two of three limits Task Achievement no matter how good the English is.
- Writing too little. Under 150 words is penalised. Aim for about 170 to 190.
- Memorised openings that do not fit. A sentence learned for a complaint letter, used in a letter to a friend, is worse than a simple sentence written on the day.
What to do next
Take any General Training prompt and, before writing anything, write one word at the top of your page: formal, semi-formal or informal. Then write your greeting and your sign off first, as a pair, and check they agree. Those two lines constrain everything in between, which is exactly what you want under time pressure.
Once you have a complete letter, you can paste it into Bandly for an estimated band on each of the four criteria and the sentences behind each estimate. The bands are produced by a scoring engine rather than a qualified examiner, so use them to find which criterion is weakest and work there. There is more on letter openings in our guide to how to start an IELTS letter.
Find out what this essay would score
Paste your own answer and Bandly returns an estimated band for each of the four criteria, with the sentences that pulled the score down. Under a cent an essay, about six seconds.
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