You live in a high-rise building with a communal laundry room. Residents sometimes leave washing in the machines, making others wait. You think the management should provide ten extra laundry baskets. Write to the Property Manager, Mr Watson. In your letter: - explain how long you have been a resident - describe the problem - propose your solution
Sample Response
Dear Mr Watson, I hope that you are doing well. I have been a resident of your Sky Village Apartment Complex for almost five5 years, and I must say that I have enjoyed living here throughout that timeall these years without any major problems. However, lately, I, like many other residents in your high-riserising building, have been dealing with an issue thatissue which, I think, deserves some immediate attention from youattention from your part. This issue, I am talking about, is related to the efficient use of our communal laundry room where people sometimes have to wait for a significant period of time to use the washers and dryers in order to do their laundry because there are not just enough laundry baskets available in the room. This problem becomes even more acute when people do not promptly empty the washing machines and dryersdo not bother to empty the washing machines and dryers on time when their laundry is done. So, to address this problembased on these problems, I would appreciatewould really appreciate it if you purchasedpurchase ten extra laundry basketsat least 10 extra laundry buckets so that residentsthe laundry users, waiting for their turnturns to do their laundry, can unload the machinesempty the laundry machines and place the laundry in those basketskeep their contents into those baskets. This will improve the situation considerablyto a great extent and reduce our waiting time significantly. I hope to hear from you soon about this proposalhear from you soon regarding this. Yours sincerely, Lance Donovan
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter fully addresses the situation, explains the resident’s history and the laundry-room problem, and proposes ten extra baskets with a clear practical benefit. Its main weakness is presentation and precision: the response is one dense paragraph and occasionally uses awkward or incorrect expressions such as 'laundry buckets.' The priority is to organise the request into short purpose, problem, and solution paragraphs while keeping the courteous tone.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All three bullet points are fully developed, the request is clear, and the respectful tone suits a letter to the property manager.
Refine the proposal by consistently calling the requested items baskets and briefly stating where management could place them.
Coherence and Cohesion
The ideas follow a logical sequence from residency to problem and solution, but presenting the entire letter as one paragraph weakens organisation.
Use separate paragraphs for the opening context, the laundry problem, and the proposed solution and benefit.
Lexical Resource
The response shows a flexible range for explaining inconvenience and making a polite request, despite several unnatural collocations and the inaccurate word 'buckets.'
Prefer natural phrases such as 'high-rise building,' 'attention from you,' 'enough baskets,' and 'place the laundry in them.'
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of complex sentences is generally controlled, with occasional errors in conditional form, prepositions, and punctuation that do not impede meaning.
Use the polite conditional accurately, for example 'I would appreciate it if you purchased ten extra baskets,' and shorten overloaded sentences.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You live in a high-rise building with a communal laundry room. Residents sometimes leave washing in the machines, making others wait. You think the management should provide ten extra laundry baskets. Write to the Property Manager, Mr Watson. In your letter:
- explain how long you have been a resident
- describe the problem
- propose your solution
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.