IELTS General Training Writing Topics for Both Tasks

Most candidates collect topics and never finish them. They save a list of sixty General Training questions, write the first four, and sit the exam having practised complaint letters four times and nothing else. The list was fine. The order was the problem.

This page is the rotation rather than the list. It covers both tasks of the General Training paper across four weeks, and it includes one complete letter marked line by line so you can see what the four criteria are actually looking at. If you want the topics themselves grouped by theme, they are in the General Training topic list.

Why the order matters more than the list

General Training Task 1 is a letter. The three bullet points under the prompt are the task, and the reader named in the prompt sets the register: formal to a stranger, semi-formal to somebody you know in a working relationship, informal to a friend.

Register is not decoration. Task Achievement asks whether the tone fits the reader, and a formal letter sent to a close friend loses marks even when every sentence is correct. So a rotation that covers three registers beats a rotation that covers twelve complaint scenarios.

Task 2 works the other way. The register is stable, formal but not stiff, and what varies is the question type. Agree or disagree, discuss both views, problem and solution, two-part question, advantages and disadvantages. Rotate the question types, not the subjects, because the subjects repeat and the shapes do not.

The four-week rotation

Three sessions a week, about two and a half hours in total. Week one is diagnostic; the rest respond to what it finds.

Each session is one answer under the clock, 20 minutes for the letter and 40 for the essay. Mark it the next day, never the same evening; you cannot see your own errors while the sentences are still in your head.

One letter, marked line by line

Here is the prompt.

You recently bought a washing machine from a local shop. It stopped working after two weeks and the shop has not replied to your calls. Write a letter to the shop manager. In your letter: explain what you bought and when, describe the problem, say what you want the shop to do.

And here is a mid-band answer, with the marking underneath.

Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing to complain about a washing machine which I purchased from your shop on 3 August. The model is the Coolwave 700 and I still have the receipt. Unfortunately, the machine stopped working after only two weeks. It fills with water but the drum does not turn, and there is a loud noise when I switch it on. I have telephoned your shop four times over the last ten days and nobody has called me back. I would like you to send an engineer to repair the machine within the next week. If it cannot be repaired, I would be grateful if you could replace it or refund the full amount. I have been a customer of your shop for six years and I hope this can be settled quickly. I look forward to hearing from you. Yours faithfully, Anna Kowalski

Task Achievement. All three bullets are covered, and covered with detail. The date, the model name and the receipt answer the first bullet properly instead of saying I bought a machine recently. The second bullet gets two symptoms and the history of the calls. The third names a first choice and a fallback, which is what say what you want means. This is the part most candidates rush.

Coherence and Cohesion. One bullet per paragraph, in the order the prompt gave them. The linking is light and functional: unfortunately, if it cannot be repaired. No paragraph opens with firstly, secondly, finally, which at this level reads as counting rather than connecting.

Lexical Resource. Purchased, engineer, refund the full amount, settled all sit correctly in a formal complaint. The writer did not reach for rare words, and that is the right call; a wrong rare word costs more than a plain correct one.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy. There is a relative clause, a conditional, a present perfect for the calls, and a modal request. Mixed structures, and the errors are few. Dear Sir or Madam is correctly paired with Yours faithfully; if the letter had opened Dear Mr Patel it would close Yours sincerely, and getting that pair wrong is a small but visible register error.

The same letter, weakened

Compare the second paragraph rewritten the way it usually arrives.

The machine is very bad and it broke. I called many times but no answer. This is very disappointing for me and I am very angry about this situation.

Two problems, and neither is grammar. First, very bad and it broke give the reader nothing: an engineer cannot act on them, so the bullet is covered in name only. Second, three sentences carry emotion and none carries fact, so Task Achievement reads it as undeveloped. The fix is not more advanced vocabulary. It is one concrete detail per sentence.

Task 2: a rotation that covers the question types

Take any subject you like from work, education, family, health, community, technology, environment, money or travel. Then force it through each shape in turn.

1. Agree or disagree. Many people think employees should be allowed to work from home whenever they want. Do you agree or disagree?
2. Discuss both views. Some people think working from home improves family life, while others think it harms working relationships. Discuss both views and give your opinion.
3. Problem and solution. More people now work from home. What problems does this create for employers, and how could they be solved?
4. Two-part question. Why do so many people want to work from home? Is this a positive or a negative development?

One subject, four papers. This is the cheapest practice available, because the ideas are already in your head after the first one and every minute goes into structure and language instead.

The trap is question two and question four. In discuss both views you must give real weight to the side you disagree with before you state your position, and in a two-part question you must answer both halves, not develop the first and mention the second in the conclusion. Both failures land on Task Response, and both are invisible to a candidate marking their own work quickly.

What to do today

Write the washing machine letter yourself before you read the model again. Give it 20 minutes and cover all three bullets with a concrete detail each. Then compare, not for vocabulary, but for how much of your letter a manager could actually act on.

When you want an estimate of where an answer sits across the four criteria, Bandly marks it in about a minute and shows you which sentences drove each criterion. The bands are estimates produced by software, not a substitute for a teacher, but they will tell you which criterion to spend next week on.