General Training Task 1 is a letter — 150 words, 20 minutes, written to a person or an organisation about an everyday situation. It is not a smaller Academic Task 1: there is no chart, no data, no overview sentence. It is a different task with a different scoring emphasis, and the single decision that dominates your band happens before you write a word: choosing the register — and then never leaving it.
The method: register first, bullets second, formula last
Move one: read the recipient, fix the register. Every GT letter prompt tells you who you are writing to. That one fact decides everything else:
| You are writing to | Register | Opens with | Closes with |
|---|---|---|---|
| An organisation / unknown person | Formal | Dear Sir or Madam, | Yours faithfully, |
| A named person you know professionally | Semi-formal | Dear Mr Chen, | Yours sincerely, |
| A friend or family member | Informal | Dear Anna, | Best wishes, / Take care, |
Memorise the pairs as pairs. Dear Sir or Madam followed by Yours sincerely is a register error in the first and last line of your letter — the two lines the examiner reads with the most attention.
Move two: the three bullets are a contract. Every prompt gives three bullet points ("explain what happened", "describe the item", "say what you want the reader to do"). Task Achievement is scored directly against them: cover all three, develop each one, and give each its own paragraph. A letter that writes two paragraphs about bullet one and a single line about bullet three has capped itself at Band 6 before grammar is even considered. Plan ten words per bullet before writing: what is my fact, my detail, my request?
Move three: match every sentence to the register you fixed. This is where most bands are lost — not in the opening line, but in the drift. A formal complaint that begins Dear Sir or Madam and then says "it was a total nightmare, honestly" has broken register; an informal letter to a friend that says "I am writing to enquire about the possibility of..." sounds like a parody. Before the exam, build two small phrase banks — one formal (I am writing regarding... / I would appreciate it if... / I look forward to your response), one informal (Just wanted to let you know... / Any chance you could... / Drop me a message) — and draw only from the matching bank.
What the examiner is actually scoring
The four dials are the same as Academic — Task Achievement, Coherence & Cohesion, Lexical Resource, Grammar — but in a letter, tone consistency sits inside Task Achievement. The public descriptors for Band 7 require a "clear purpose, with the tone consistent and appropriate". That word consistent is the GT-specific trap: one chatty sentence in a formal letter is enough to pull the TA judgement down a band. When you check your letter in the final two minutes, you are not looking for a missing comma first — you are re-reading for one sentence wearing the wrong clothes.
A second GT-specific note: invented detail is expected. The prompt says your suitcase was damaged; you invent the airline, the date, the flight number. Specific invented detail (flight QF32 on 3 March) reads as fluent, developed writing; vague generality (recently, on a flight) reads as underdeveloped. You are being scored on language, not truthfulness — commit to concrete details quickly and spend your minutes on register and coverage.
And Task 2? The GT essay is close enough to the Academic essay that one method serves both — the position → ideas → development lesson applies unchanged: Task 2: position → ideas → development. Your 60 minutes still split 20/40 in favour of Task 2, which carries double weight.
Your drill
Take this prompt and write the letter in 20 minutes, timed: You recently bought a small electrical appliance that stopped working within a week. Write a letter to the shop manager: explain what you bought and when, describe the problem, and say what you would like the shop to do. Before writing, fix the register (manager you have never met → formal), plan ten words per bullet, then draft. Score yourself against exactly three questions: did every paragraph serve one bullet? Is the opening/closing pair matched? Is there a single sentence a friend would call "chatty"? If yes to the last one, that sentence is where your next week of practice lives.
The hard part of GT Writing is not knowing the method — it is producing letter after letter, in the right register, about your situations: your landlord, your manager, your course, your town. That production problem is what our companion site solves for General Training candidates: IELTS Writing Prep's General Training section writes band-calibrated Task 1 letters across all three registers and GT Task 2 essays — built from your own real situations and stories, not shared templates, so every phrase is one you can honestly reuse on exam day.