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

1 correction note

Dear Emre,

I hope you are doing well. I wanted to let you know that I have recently moved to a new house. The main reason for the move was that our previous apartment was becoming too small for the family, and we needed more space.

Our new house is lovely. It has three bedrooms, a spacious living room, and a small garden at the back. The kitchen is modern, and there’s plenty of natural light in every room. I especially enjoy the balcony, which has a great view of the neighborhood.

I would love for you to come and visit sometime soon. It would be wonderful to show you around, catch up, and spend some quality time together. Let me know when you are free, and I can help arrange your stay.

Warm regards,

Michael

Overall assessment

Why this response received Band 8.0

The letter is friendly, well-organized, and fully achieves its communicative purpose, with all three bullet points addressed in an appropriate informal register. The strongest aspect is the fluent, natural language, while the main limitation is that the response falls short of the expected minimum length, leaving some points only briefly developed.

IELTS criteria

How each score was decided

Task Achievement

7.0

The letter covers all three bullet points from the prompt—reason for moving, description of the new house, and an invitation to visit—in a consistent friendly tone, but the response is under the minimum length by 14 words, so some points receive only limited development.

Coherence and Cohesion

8.0

Ideas are logically sequenced across clear paragraphs, each dedicated to one bullet point, with natural cohesive devices linking the message throughout.

Lexical Resource

8.0

Vocabulary is flexible and precise for an informal letter, with natural collocations such as 'spacious living room', 'plenty of natural light', and 'quality time', and no noticeable errors.

Grammatical Range and Accuracy

8.0

A wide range of grammatical structures is used accurately, including relative clauses ('which has a great view'), conditionals, and varied sentence patterns, with only rare minor slips.

More responses with feedback

View all 11 responses (6.5–8.0)