Advice to a Friend on Learning a New Sport

Your English-speaking friend who lives in your town has asked for your advice about learning a new sport. Write an email to your friend. In your email • recommend a new sport that would be suitable for your friend to learn • explain how your friend could learn this sport • suggest that you both learn this sport together. You do NOT need to write any addresses. Begin your letter as follows: Dear ……………,

Annotated response

2 correction notes

Dear Ethina,

I hope you're doing great by the grace of almighty! I’m really excited that you want to learn a new sport, and I think badminton would be a great choice for you. It’s fun, easy to pick up, and an excellent way to stay active. Plus, you don’t need a lot of expensive equipment - just a racket, a shuttlecock, and some comfortable sportswear.

To get started, you could join a beginner’s class at a local sports centre, preferably at Linda's Sports & Fitness. They offer lessons with professional coaches who can teach you the basics, such as proper footwork, racket grip, and different shots. If you prefer something more casual, we could book a court at the local sports hall and . There are also plenty of online tutorials that explain techniques and strategies, which can help speed up your progress.

Since I’ve also been wanting to get back into playing badminton, how about we learn together? It’ll be more fun and motivating , and we can even join some friendly local matches once we improve!

Let me know when you're free, and we’ll get started. Looking forward to it!

Best wishes,

Catherine

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 8.0

This is a fluent, well-developed email that covers all three bullet points in a consistently friendly register, with concrete local detail such as the named sports centre. Its main limitation is a slight lack of expansion in places, such as when the joint-learning suggestion could be developed a little further, but communication is effortless throughout.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

Task Achievement

8.0

All three bullet points are directly addressed with a clear recommendation, practical learning options, and a genuine invitation to learn together, all in an appropriate friendly tone with relevant supporting detail.

Coherence and Cohesion

8.0

Ideas are organised into logical paragraphs and linked smoothly with natural cohesive devices, producing a consistently easy-to-follow progression from opening to closing.

Lexical Resource

8.0

Vocabulary is flexible and precise for an informal email, with natural collocations such as 'proper footwork', 'racket grip', and 'speed up your progress', and only rare imprecision.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

8.0

A wide range of sentence structures, including complex conditionals and relative clauses, is used accurately and flexibly with only minor slips that do not impede meaning.

More responses with feedback

View all 3 responses (7.0–8.0)