Inquiring About a Work-Related Seminar Abroad

  • Professional training
  • Events
  • Travel
  • Request

You would like to participate in a work-related seminar in another country. Write a letter to the person in charge of the seminar. In your letter: - ask for information about the seminar dates - ask for details of the programme - ask about accommodation - ask about the cost

Annotated response

3 correction notes

Dear Sir or Madam,

I would like to participate in the seminar you are going to organise next month in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I learned about it from your website and I believe such a seminar will help me perform better in my current job. As the website did not include all the details, I am hoping that you would be kind enough to answer some of my queries. As I am residing in Bangladesh, I would like to know the exact dates, venue and program schedule so that I can plan for the trip. Various actions, including taking time off from the office, applying for a visa and preparing for the trip are related to the seminar schedule. In addition to that, please inform me about the accommodation arrangement - whether it would be managed by the host I would also like to know about the total cost of attending the seminar and other expenditures like accommodation, meals, fares etc. I request you to provide so that I can complete the arrangement well ahead of time.

Thank you in advance. Yours faithfully, Safayet Ullah

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 7.0

The letter addresses all four requested areas with a clear purpose and an appropriately polite tone. Its main organisational weakness is that every enquiry appears in one long body paragraph. The accommodation enquiry also mixes indirect and direct question word order, while a few expressions could be more precise.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

Task Achievement

7.5

The response covers all four bullet points in a suitably formal tone with a clear purpose, though the date, programme, and accommodation queries are partly merged rather than each fully developed.

Coherence and Cohesion

6.0

The requests follow a clear sequence, but the entire main body is one long paragraph between the salutation and closing. Grouping related enquiries into separate paragraphs would make the dates, programme, accommodation and costs easier to follow.

Lexical Resource

7.0

There is sufficient range for a formal enquiry, including programme schedule, accommodation arrangement and total cost. A few phrases lack precision, especially requesting the details of my queries instead of answers to the queries.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

7.0

A good range of complex structures is used with generally strong control, though errors in question formation, such as 'do I need to arrange it myself' after 'whether', recur occasionally.

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