Letter to a Friend About Moving House

  • Housing
  • Notification
  • Invitation

You have recently moved to a different house. Write a letter to an English-speaking friend. In your letter • explain why you have moved • describe the new house • invite your friend to come and visit Dear.............,

Annotated response

2 correction notes

Dear Charlotte, I'm writing to let you know that at last, we've moved to a bigger house! We just couldn't go on living in the two-bedroom bungalow now that the twins are growing up and the new baby has arrived. So we started looking - and one thing led to another and finally, I'm sure you'll like it. We have three bedrooms now and a very modern bathroom and kitchen. The kids are happy because there is more space with the big living room and the garden outside. But John is the happiest of all because he doesn't need to do much decorating. Why don't you come round this weekend and see what you think of our new place? We would all love to see you. If the weather is favourable, we can even have a barbecue in the garden. Our new address and phone number are below, so give us a call and let us know when to expect you. With lots of love, Julia

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 8.0

The letter fully achieves its communicative purpose with a natural, warm register and clear development of all three bullet points, including a concrete invitation with practical details. The strongest aspect is the fluent, appropriately friendly tone; the main limitation is that the description of the house, while adequate, remains fairly simple in vocabulary.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

Task Achievement

8.0

The letter covers all three bullet points—reason for moving, description of the new house, and a warm invitation with a suggested weekend and barbecue—in an appropriately informal tone, with relevant detail throughout.

Coherence and Cohesion

8.0

Ideas progress logically from the move to the house to the invitation, with well-managed cohesive devices such as 'so', 'but', and 'why don't you', giving a consistently clear message.

Lexical Resource

7.0

Vocabulary is natural and suits the informal register, with some precise items like 'bungalow' and 'favourable', though the range remains generally adequate rather than flexibly sophisticated.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

8.0

A wide range of structures is used with good control, including relative clauses, comparatives like 'the happiest of all', and varied sentence types, with only a very minor slip ('here we're').

More responses with feedback

View all 11 responses (6.5–8.0)