How to actually handle the Ielts Writing Task 1 General without losing your mind
The General Training Writing Task 1 asks you to write a letter. That's it. You get a prompt that tells you why you're writing and three bullet points you need to cover. You have 20 minutes and need to write at least 150 words. Most people treat this like a creative writing exercise and completely misread what's being asked. Here's how it works when you strip away the confusion. There are three main types: formal, semi-formal, and informal. The difference comes down to who you're writing to. Formal letters go to people you don't know personally — a manager, a landlord, a government office, a complaint department. Semi-formal is for someone you know but in a professional context, like a colleague or neighbor. Informal is for friends and family. Here's the thing nobody emphasizes enough: the salutation and sign-off must match the letter type exactly. If you write "Dear Sir/Madam" and then sign off with "Cheers," you've just signaled to the examiner that you don't understand register. Get this wrong and you lose marks in Tone and Register, which is a whole band descriptor worth more than some people realize.
I once saw a candidate who wrote a formal complaint letter to a council about noise nuisance but opened with "Hey there" and closed with "Talk soon." They got a band 5.5 for that task alone. Not because their grammar was bad, but because they fundamentally misunderstood the social contract of the exercise.
The structure that actually works
Forget elaborate introductions. Your letter needs four paragraphs minimum, and they map directly to the prompt: Paragraph 1: Purpose. State why you're writing in one or two sentences. "I am writing to report a persistent issue with..." or "I'm writing to invite you to..." That's it. Don't waste words. Paragraphs 2 and 3: The bullet points. Each bullet point becomes roughly one paragraph. Address them in the order given. If the prompt asks you to explain a problem, give details, and suggest a solution, don't reorder them to fit some template you memorized. Examiners check that all three bullets are covered, and they notice when you skip or merge them.
Get the Full Details
Paragraph 4: Closing. One sentence. "I look forward to hearing from you" for formal. "Hope to see you soon" for informal. Again, match the register. This structure typically takes about 8 to 10 minutes to plan and write if you're practiced. The remaining 10 minutes should go to checking. Not rewriting. Just reading through for obvious errors.
What examiners actually penalize
Word count is the most basic filter. Under 150 words and you're capped at band 5 for Task Achievement regardless of how well you write. I've personally marked papers where someone wrote 142 words and lost nearly a full band just from that. It's not harsh — it's a minimum requirement. Plan for around 170 to 180 words. That gives you breathing room without dragging the task out. Another counter-intuitive point: overusing fancy vocabulary hurts you more than helping. Examiners see pages of "herewith," "aforementioned," and "pertaining to" from people trying to sound formal. It reads as unnatural and lowers your Lexical Resource score. Plain, accurate language always beats forced sophistication. "I would like to request" is better than "I am writing herein to formally petition for." This is one of those things that sounds wrong but scores higher. Also, don't invent information that contradicts the prompt. I once read a letter where the task said the person had recently moved house and they were writing to set up utilities, but the writer described having lived at the address for ten years. Contradictory content pulls down Task Achievement because you're not responding accurately to what was asked.
Edge cases and harder prompts
The hardest prompts are the ones that combine purposes. Like a letter that asks you to complain about a product and also request a refund or replacement. You need to make sure both parts are distinct and fully addressed. Students often merge them into one muddy paragraph and lose clarity. Another tricky scenario: when the prompt gives you very little context about the recipient. You might see something like "Write a letter to your bank" without specifying which department or person. In those cases, "Dear Sir or Madam" is safe, and you can reference the bank generally. Don't pretend you know the manager's name if the prompt doesn't give it to you. For informal letters, the relationship matters. A letter to a close friend allows contractions, casual phrases, and emotional language. A letter to a cousin you see occasionally sits somewhere in between. The difference between these two can cost you a half-band if you pick the wrong tone consistently throughout.
Practical preparation method
Here's what I actually recommend for practice, not what the glossy books say. Get past papers or official Cambridge IELTS books. Write one letter every other day under timed conditions — 20 minutes flat. Use a phone timer. No exceptions. The time pressure is part of the test and most people aren't prepared for it. After writing, compare your letter against the band descriptors on the IELTS website. Not against a model answer. Against the actual public band descriptors. Check each of the four criteria separately: Task Achievement, Coherence and Cohesion, Lexical Resource, Grammatical Range and Accuracy. Be honest about where you lose marks. This process usually takes about 15 minutes per letter, so budget 35 minutes total for write plus review. Keep a folder of your letters. After ten or twelve, you'll start seeing your own patterns — the same grammar mistakes, the same register slips, the same paragraphs that run too long. Fixing your personal recurring issues is more efficient than trying to improve everything at once.
One more thing that isn't obvious: memorizing templates is fine for structure but dangerous for content. If you memorize a paragraph like "I am writing with regard to the matter concerning..." and paste it into every letter regardless of prompt, it shows. Examiners read thousands of these. They recognize boilerplate. Build your structure from the prompt, not from a memorized opening.
