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

2 correction notes

Dear Sir or Madam, I am very excited about the seminar on "Risk Management in the Financial Industry" that will be organised by you in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. However, the information, that I received from the advert in a local newspaper, does not include the dates, program outlines, accommodation plan and the cost. I currently work in a financial institution in Italy and have spent over 5 years in the Risk Management sector. Thus the seminar will be immensely useful to me in facing current risk management issues. I am hoping that you will give me further details about the seminar. Firstly, please provide me with the actual date and agenda of the workshop with the detailed program structure. Are there any prerequisites to attend it? Secondly, what would be the cost to book the seat and what international payment methods are accepted? Lastly, will you handle the hotel booking for the international participants? If so, what would be the approximate cost? Thank you in advance. I am looking forward to hearing from you soon. Yours faithfully, Cyril Chinkata

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 7.0

The letter covers all four requested areas with relevant detail and a clear, polite purpose. Its main organisational weakness is the absence of paragraph divisions. Occasional punctuation errors, particularly the commas around the restrictive clause after information, also reduce accuracy.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

Task Achievement

8.0

The letter asks about dates, the programme, accommodation, and cost exactly as the prompt requires, uses an appropriately formal register with a clear purpose, and develops each request with relevant detail such as payment methods and hotel booking for international participants.

Coherence and Cohesion

5.5

The enquiries follow a clear sequence, but the entire letter, including the salutation and closing, is one continuous paragraph. Meaningful grouping is needed to distinguish the professional background, programme enquiry and practical arrangements.

Lexical Resource

7.0

Vocabulary is sufficiently flexible for the purpose, with natural phrases such as 'immensely useful', 'prerequisites', and 'programme structure', with only minor imprecision such as 'program outlines'.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

7.0

A good range of sentence structures, including relative and conditional forms, is used with generally good control, though occasional errors such as the unnecessary comma in 'the information, that I received' reduce full flexibility.

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