Task 2 · Band 8 path
Formal Letter — To a Stranger or an Organisation
Dear Sir or Madam. No contractions, no phrasal verbs, and every bullet developed.
Recognise the register
How to tell from the scenario which register the reader requires, and what breaking it costs.
Dear Sir or Madam. No contractions, no phrasal verbs, and every bullet developed.
The most commonly set register in General Training Task 1, and the one with the most scenarios.
Also called: Business letter · Letter of complaint · Formal request · Letter to a company
Spotting it
How this question is worded
Write to the manager / the council / the company
You have never met this person and they act in an institutional role. Formal: "Dear Sir or Madam", "Yours faithfully".
Write a letter of complaint about …
The most common formal scenario. Complaint does not mean anger — a Band 8 complaint is measured, factual and ends with a specific request.
You would like to apply for / request information about …
A request letter. Every bullet becomes something you need, and the tone is courteous rather than demanding.
No name is given for the recipient
That absence is the instruction. With no name you cannot write "Dear Mr Smith", so it is "Dear Sir or Madam" and therefore "Yours faithfully".
The rule that decides Task Response
The salutation, the tone and the sign-off must agree with each other and with the reader, from the first line to the last. "Dear Sir or Madam" pairs with "Yours faithfully" and never with "Yours sincerely"; a formal opening followed by "it was a nightmare" breaks the register halfway down. Register failure is marked under Task Achievement, not Lexical Resource, so it caps the letter regardless of how accurate the English is — and all three bullet points must be DEVELOPED, not merely mentioned.
The standard
What a Band 8 answer to this type does
- The correct salutation for an unnamed recipient, and the matching sign-off.
- The purpose of the letter stated in the first sentence.
- All three bullet points covered, each developed with specific invented detail.
- A consistent formal register throughout — no contractions, no slang, no exclamation marks.
- A clear, polite statement of what the writer wants to happen.
- At least 150 words, organised into paragraphs with a closing line before the sign-off.
Where the band is lost
The 7 traps in this question type
Each of these is a specific, repeatable way to lose marks on this type — not general writing advice.
Salutation and sign-off that do not matchTask Achievement capped at 6
"Dear Sir or Madam" with "Yours sincerely" is the single most frequent error in GT Task 1. The rule is mechanical: no name means "faithfully", a name means "sincerely". Getting it wrong signals to the examiner that the conventions were never learned, in the two places they look first.
The fix
No name → "Dear Sir or Madam" … "Yours faithfully". Name given → "Dear Mr/Ms Patel" … "Yours sincerely". Check the pair before you hand the paper in.
Bullets mentioned rather than developedTask Achievement capped at 6
A letter that restates the three bullets in different words has "covered" them in the weakest possible sense. The descriptors reward a fully developed response, and three one-sentence answers cannot be one — this is where most 150-word letters stop being enough.
The fix
Invent specific, plausible detail for each bullet: dates, room numbers, names, amounts, times. Two to three sentences each. The details do not have to be true; they have to be concrete.
The polite structures collapsing under their own grammarGrammatical Range & Accuracy capped at 6.5
Formal letters concentrate their hardest grammar into the two sentences that matter most. "I would be grateful if you WILL" breaks the politeness conditional, and reported speech fails its tense shift — "I was told that the room will be cleaned" — precisely where the complaint is being made. Both errors land in the request and the account, so they are the sentences the reader weighs.
The fix
Two rules cover almost all of it. The politeness conditional takes a past-form modal in both halves: "grateful if you WOULD". Reported speech shifts back one step: will becomes would, is becomes was, tomorrow becomes the following day.
Contractions and phrasal verbs in a formal letterTask Achievement 6.5 · Lexical Resource 6.5
"I didn't get any help and the staff just put up with the noise" is perfectly good English in the wrong register. In a formal letter it reads as over-familiar, and register consistency is explicitly part of what Task Achievement assesses here.
The fix
Expand every contraction, and swap casual phrasal verbs for single-word formal equivalents: put up with → tolerate, sort out → resolve, get in touch → contact, look into → investigate.
Anger instead of authorityTask Achievement 6 · Lexical Resource 6
"This was totally unacceptable!!! I want my money back NOW" is emotionally understandable and scores badly. Exclamation marks, capitals and intensifiers are informal features, and a complaint that sounds furious reads as less credible than one that sounds calm.
The fix
State the facts and let them carry the weight. "The room was not cleaned during a four-night stay" is more damning than "it was disgusting", and it is in register.
No statement of what you actually wantTask Achievement 6.5
Many candidates describe a problem in detail and never say what should happen about it. A formal letter is an instrument — it exists to produce an outcome — and one that stops after the description has not finished its job.
The fix
Make the third bullet, or the closing line, an explicit request: a refund, a replacement, an investigation, a reply by a date.
Writing under 150 wordsTask Achievement capped at 6
IELTS removed the automatic word-count deduction in 2018, so nothing is subtracted — but a short letter is an under-developed letter, and the descriptors reward full development. The cost is indirect and larger than a fixed penalty would be.
The fix
Three bullets at two to three sentences each, plus an opening and a close, lands naturally at 170–200 words. If you are short, it is because a bullet was mentioned rather than developed.
Quick reference
The Formal letter at a glance
The salutation, the tone and the sign-off must agree with each other and with the reader, from the first line to the last. "Dear Sir or Madam" pairs with "Yours faithfully" and never with "Yours sincerely"; a formal opening followed by "it was a nightmare" breaks the register halfway down. Register failure is marked under Task Achievement, not Lexical Resource, so it caps the letter regardless of how accurate the English is — and all three bullet points must be DEVELOPED, not merely mentioned.
The most commonly set register in General Training Task 1, and the one with the most scenarios.
How to recognise this question
- “Write to the manager / the council / the company”
- You have never met this person and they act in an institutional role. Formal: "Dear Sir or Madam", "Yours faithfully".
- “Write a letter of complaint about …”
- The most common formal scenario. Complaint does not mean anger — a Band 8 complaint is measured, factual and ends with a specific request.
- “You would like to apply for / request information about …”
- A request letter. Every bullet becomes something you need, and the tone is courteous rather than demanding.
- “No name is given for the recipient”
- That absence is the instruction. With no name you cannot write "Dear Mr Smith", so it is "Dear Sir or Madam" and therefore "Yours faithfully".
The four-paragraph structure
Greet correctly and say why you are writing, in the first sentence.
Answer the first bullet with specific, invented, plausible detail.
A different job from bullet 1, developed to the same depth.
Usually the ask — what you want the reader to do.
Look forward, then sign off in the form the salutation requires.
The traps that cap this type at Band 6
Salutation and sign-off that do not matchTask Achievement capped at 6
"Dear Sir or Madam" with "Yours sincerely" is the single most frequent error in GT Task 1. The rule is mechanical: no name means "faithfully", a name means "sincerely". Getting it wrong signals to the examiner that the conventions were never learned, in the two places they look first.
Fix: No name → "Dear Sir or Madam" … "Yours faithfully". Name given → "Dear Mr/Ms Patel" … "Yours sincerely". Check the pair before you hand the paper in.
Bullets mentioned rather than developedTask Achievement capped at 6
A letter that restates the three bullets in different words has "covered" them in the weakest possible sense. The descriptors reward a fully developed response, and three one-sentence answers cannot be one — this is where most 150-word letters stop being enough.
Fix: Invent specific, plausible detail for each bullet: dates, room numbers, names, amounts, times. Two to three sentences each. The details do not have to be true; they have to be concrete.
The polite structures collapsing under their own grammarGrammatical Range & Accuracy capped at 6.5
Formal letters concentrate their hardest grammar into the two sentences that matter most. "I would be grateful if you WILL" breaks the politeness conditional, and reported speech fails its tense shift — "I was told that the room will be cleaned" — precisely where the complaint is being made. Both errors land in the request and the account, so they are the sentences the reader weighs.
Fix: Two rules cover almost all of it. The politeness conditional takes a past-form modal in both halves: "grateful if you WOULD". Reported speech shifts back one step: will becomes would, is becomes was, tomorrow becomes the following day.
Contractions and phrasal verbs in a formal letterTask Achievement 6.5 · Lexical Resource 6.5
"I didn't get any help and the staff just put up with the noise" is perfectly good English in the wrong register. In a formal letter it reads as over-familiar, and register consistency is explicitly part of what Task Achievement assesses here.
Fix: Expand every contraction, and swap casual phrasal verbs for single-word formal equivalents: put up with → tolerate, sort out → resolve, get in touch → contact, look into → investigate.
Anger instead of authorityTask Achievement 6 · Lexical Resource 6
"This was totally unacceptable!!! I want my money back NOW" is emotionally understandable and scores badly. Exclamation marks, capitals and intensifiers are informal features, and a complaint that sounds furious reads as less credible than one that sounds calm.
Fix: State the facts and let them carry the weight. "The room was not cleaned during a four-night stay" is more damning than "it was disgusting", and it is in register.
No statement of what you actually wantTask Achievement 6.5
Many candidates describe a problem in detail and never say what should happen about it. A formal letter is an instrument — it exists to produce an outcome — and one that stops after the description has not finished its job.
Fix: Make the third bullet, or the closing line, an explicit request: a refund, a replacement, an investigation, a reply by a date.
Writing under 150 wordsTask Achievement capped at 6
IELTS removed the automatic word-count deduction in 2018, so nothing is subtracted — but a short letter is an under-developed letter, and the descriptors reward full development. The cost is indirect and larger than a fixed penalty would be.
Fix: Three bullets at two to three sentences each, plus an opening and a close, lands naturally at 170–200 words. If you are short, it is because a bullet was mentioned rather than developed.
Formal letter questions — frequently asked
"Yours faithfully" or "Yours sincerely"?
No name given → "Dear Sir or Madam" → "Yours faithfully". A name given → "Dear Mr/Ms Patel" → "Yours sincerely". It is mechanical, and it is the easiest mark in General Training Task 1 to lose.
Am I allowed to invent details?
You are expected to. The task gives you a scenario, not a life, so dates, room numbers, reference codes and amounts all have to come from you. Invented detail is what "developed" means here, and a letter without it stays at 6.
How angry should a complaint sound?
Not at all. Understatement is stronger and it is in register: "the room was not cleaned during a four-night stay" is more damning than "it was disgusting". Exclamation marks, capitals and threats all cost Task Achievement.
Do I need an address at the top?
No. IELTS asks for the letter only — begin at the salutation. Writing out addresses wastes words from a 150-word budget and earns nothing.
What if I cannot think of anything for the third bullet?
In a formal letter it is almost always the ask: a refund, a replacement, an investigation, an interview, a reply by a date. If you are stuck, state what you want to happen and why it is proportionate — that is two sentences immediately.
Next
Once this type is at Band 8, move to another — Semi-formal letter, Informal letter — or check a full essay you have written in the Essay Checker
Go deeper on Task 2
- Band 9 vs Band 6.5 sample answersThe same question answered twice, compared criterion by criterion
- How IELTS Writing is markedWhat each of the four criteria actually rewards
- More Task 2 questionsA large bank of practice prompts by topic
- Timed writing mock testTask 1 and Task 2 in 60 minutes, marked like the exam