Task
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
Answer
This is an answer from a candidate who achieved a Band 6.0 score.
Dear Vanessa,
I am very glad to write this letter for you. I recognised that you are looking for an advice about a new sport to learn. Well, I would suggest you a very popular sport in my town, which is basketball. All my friends are interested in this activity. Indeed, there is a great club around my house where they perfectly teach how to play this sport. You can register and start your sessions right away. You will be introduced to all the informations: rules, movements, tricks and so on. I am sure you will enjoy it and I believe that playing basketball would suit you well as you have the physical potential for it.
I personally am a huge fan of basketball, but I have not had the opportunity to learn it. So, I think I might join you to the club if you consider my advice to you. That would be a wonderful idea!
I hope my letter will satisfy your needs and I will be looking foreward to recieving your answer.
Take care,
You friend
Examiner’s Comment
This response addresses the task and covers all three points. The sport chosen is basketball and the way to learn would be by joining a local club. The third point is not presented as clearly. The expression [join you to the club] does not fully indicate that the plan is to ‘learn this sport together’. To improve this response, the third point should be more clearly presented.
There is also inconsistency in tone at the end where [satisfie your needs] sounds too formal for a letter to a friend. Ideas are logically organised with some effective use of cohesive devices [Well | which | where | but | So].
The range of vocabulary is adequate with some less common items [physical potential | had the opportunity], but a greater range would be needed to score more highly. This response includes sentences with multiple clauses including [but | if] and a range of tenses. However, there are more than a few errors [for you / to you | an advice / advice | suggest you / suggest] which detract from the overall score.
