IELTS General Training Task 1: A Band 8.0 Letter (Beach Cleanup), Graded
A letter rallying neighbours for a community beach cleanup — graded band-by-band by Cuepen's AI examiner, showing the handful of collocation and grammar slips that keep a fluent Band 8 letter from a 9.
Question:
A community event is being organised in your local area to clean up a public space (such as a beach or a park). Write a letter to your neighbours. In your letter:
- Explain why the cleanup event is important
- Provide details about the schedule and activities of the event
- Tell them what they need to bring or do to prepare
Write at least 150 words. Begin your letter as follows: Dear Neighbours,
Candidate's answer:
Dear neighbours,
I wish to inform you regarding an upcoming community event to clean the Marina beach. This is organised not only to ensure a safe environment for our families to play and relax, but also protect the marine animals. Furthermore, we foresee this activity to positively impact the revenues of our local shops by attracting more national and international tourists.
The event is decided to be conducted on the coming Monday to avoid any unnecessary disruption to the tourists on the weekends. In addition, it will be an all-day event starting from 6:00 a.m. in the morning and will last till 7:00 p.m. in the night. The event will commence with a welcome note from our esteemed mayor and will conclude with a paid barbecue dinner at the adjacent childrens park.
All residents are requested to carry water-proof clothing to prepare in advance for any unexpected rain. You are requested to collect bags and disposable gloves at the entrance counter to pick plastic and other non-biodegradable items on the beach. I look forward to an enthusiastic participation from you.
Yours faithfully,
Priya
Full Cuepen report:
This is the complete assessment, exactly as the model returned it. Click a criterion card to filter the line-by-line view, or any flagged sentence for its feedback.
Candidate's Answer
Task Achievement feedback (2)
Furthermore, we foresee this activity to positively impact the revenues of our local shops by attracting more national and international tourists.
💡The shop-revenue benefit is mentioned but only lightly justified.
Furthermore, a cleaner beach is likely to boost our local shops' revenues, since it will draw more national and international tourists throughout the year.
The event will commence with a welcome note from our esteemed mayor and will conclude with a paid barbecue dinner at the adjacent childrens park.
💡Announcing a 'paid' barbecue dinner introduces a commercial note that sits slightly at odds with the warm, volunteer tone of a neighbourhood cleanup invitation.
The event will commence with a welcome note from our esteemed mayor and conclude with an optional barbecue dinner at the adjacent children's park.
The fastest route to Band 9
- Fix the four grammar slips: "but also protect" → "but also to protect"; "childrens park" → "children’s park"; "to pick plastic" → "to pick up"; "an enthusiastic participation" → "your enthusiastic participation".
- Tighten wordy phrasing: "a.m. in the morning" / "p.m. in the night" are redundant, and "is decided to be conducted" is an awkward double passive.
- Vary "event" (used 4 times) and soften the tone — a "paid" barbecue reads oddly in a volunteer invitation.
Frequently asked questions
What band is this IELTS GT letter?+
It scores an overall Band 8.0 — Task Achievement, Coherence and Lexical Resource at Band 8, with Grammatical Range at Band 7.
How do I improve a GT Task 1 letter from Band 8 to Band 9?+
Fix small parallelism, apostrophe and phrasal-verb slips, trim redundant time phrases, and vary connectors and repeated words — the report flags each one.
Does Cuepen grade General Training letters?+
Yes — Cuepen's AI examiner scores GT Task 1, Academic Task 1 and Task 2 against all four IELTS criteria with line-by-line feedback.
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