Write a letter to your friend, in your letter ask your friend to send you one of the photographs

topic: you recently went on a trip with a friend and you both took some photographs. write a letter to your friend. in your letter: ask your friend to send you on of the photographs, explain why you need that particular photograph; and tell your friend what happened to your copy of it.

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I need a favor from my friend

Dear Sarah,
Hope all is well. Here, I need a big favor from you and hope you can help me out.

I was in the midst of backing up all recent photos to my laptop and strangely some photos went missing during the data transferring process. While I've managed to retrieve some photos, there was one that went completely missing and could not be found. That photo had both of us in it and it was taken during our trip to Japan last summer! Do you remember which one? It was the one where we took together after we've successfully completed our first full marathon. It's so meaningful as it captured such a memorable event for both of us. It would be a shame if I could not have it back.

I wonder if you could send me a copy of the photograph? I would like to print it out and frame it. I'm sure it will be a perfect decoration for my new house.

Hope you can shed some lights over.

Best,
Jamie

Jessy, the letter is good. It delivers on all the prompt expectations except on one point. That is, you were asked to discuss a recent trip. So when you said "last summer" that is not considered recent. A recent trip would be something that you had about a few days ago. Anything over one month uses the term "last" which indicates a longer period of time. Recent means something:

having happened, begun, or been done not long ago or not long before; belonging to a past period of time comparatively close to the present.

Therefore, while your essay delivered on most of the requirements, the misunderstanding regarding the proper time frame of the event has resulted in a lower score for this essay. The score would probably be anywhere between a 3 (for failure to address the task properly) to a 4 (because you were able to address the task but missed a few important points such as the correct time frame). By the way, what did you mean by "Hope you can shed some light over"? That doesn't make sense to a native English speaker. Kindly explain what you mean.

@Holt
Hi! thanks for your feedback. Noted on the time frame and a very good point indeed.

'Shed some light over' .. what i mean was 'hope you can help me out' (or sth along the line you can enlighten me)... Used to see this phrase quite often in many correspondences in the office

any tip how to make it an 8 essay?

There are a number of things that you could have done to turn this into an 8 essay. First of all, you should have gotten the time reference right. Then, you could have written a longer letter composed of about 3 paragraphs. That meant that the tone of the letter would have needed to be more cordial in order to have you write more English words that hopefully, would have translated into more complex sentences. Using English words or slang that is more commonly known to native English speakers would have also been helpful. When you use slang that is common only to your part of the world, you will lose the reviewer. So it is always best to either keep the slang to a minimum or not use it at all. A little bit more of English fluency, to the level of a native speaker would have been necessary to secure the final criteria that could have scored you an 8. It is very difficult to achieve an 8 but it can be done. With constant practice of both the written and spoken English language, you just might get to that level. That level of writing though, normally takes ESL students years, if not decades to achieve. Just keep practicing and you will eventually get to that level.