You are a student at a language school in New Zealand studying Business English. Part of the course is a summer work placement programme. Unfortunately, you have just learnt from the school that this programme has now been cancelled. Write a letter to the School Principal. In your letter: - state your reason for writing - describe the problem and your concerns - explain what you would like the Principal to do.
Sample Response
Dear Sir,
I am writing this letter to express my deep disappointment atsheer disappointment with the news that the work placement programme has been cancelled this summer.
One of the main reasons I chose to study Business English at your school in July and August was the chance to participate in the work placement programme. There are many English schools in the country that offer Business English, but not many offer the chance to go and work in a local company as part of the courseas part of the course programme. Although your school is more expensive than other schoolsthe competition, I was happy to pay extra because I thought the programme was high-qualitycourse programme was qualitative and offered a practical approach as well. However, I am now dissatisfiednow I am unhappy and distressed because I have spent a lot of money and I am not getting the results I expecteddesirable results.
As the course programme is now very different from the one advertised, I would like to request a full refund of my course feesfull refund of the money I have paid for this course so I can continue my studies elsewherecontinue somewhere else.
Yours sincerelySincerely,
Rahul Garg
Why this response received Band 8.0
The letter presents a clear complaint in an appropriately formal register, explains why the cancelled placement matters, and makes a specific request for a refund. Its main limitation is occasional imprecise or unnatural vocabulary, which slightly reduces the professional polish of an otherwise fluent response. The highest-priority improvement is to replace awkward collocations with more natural business English while preserving the strong structure and direct purpose.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose remains clear throughout, all three bullet points are fully addressed, and the formal tone suits a letter to the principal.
Strengthen the requested remedy by briefly stating when or how the refund should be arranged.
Coherence and Cohesion
Information is organised into purposeful paragraphs, and the reasoning develops smoothly from the cancellation to its consequences and the requested response.
Tighten the central paragraph slightly so the financial concern and loss of practical experience stand out even more clearly.
Lexical Resource
The response demonstrates good range and generally effective formal vocabulary, though several collocations sound imprecise or unnatural.
Replace expressions such as “qualitative” and “desirable results” with natural choices such as “high quality” and “the promised practical experience.”
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentences are handled accurately and flexibly, with secure control of tense, subordination, and punctuation throughout most of the letter.
Maintain this control while checking small conventions such as capitalisation in the closing and keeping long sentences concise.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You are a student at a language school in New Zealand studying Business English. Part of the course is a summer work placement programme. Unfortunately, you have just learnt from the school that this programme has now been cancelled. Write a letter to the School Principal. In your letter:
- state your reason for writing
- describe the problem and your concerns
- explain what you would like the Principal to do.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.