You recently went shopping at the local supermarket. When you got home and checked your bill, you found that you had been charged for items you did not purchase. Write a letter to the supermarket manager. In your letter: - explain what has happened - say how you feel about the error - say what you would like the manager to do about it
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am a regular customer of your shop and went there earlier today to do some shopping. I wasam quite disappointed to notice that I was billed for items that I did not purchase at all. Unfortunately, I noticed it only when I returned home. I hope that you will rectifyam hoping that you would rectify the issue. I visited your shop at around 9.30 am on a Sunday in July 2025on Sunday, July 2025 and purchased a number of items. I paid my bill to a young lady who was working at checkout 4managing the cash queue 4. I gave her my Visa cardmy VISA credit card and was charged 142 dollars and 25 cents for all of my items. The counter was unusually busy and I did not have enough time to cross-checkcrosscheck the costamount of the goods I purchased. When I got back home and studied the bill, I noticed some errors. I was charged for each item I bought as well as forand in addition, for a pair of socks, 100 grams of cheese100-gram cheese, a bottle of shampoo and one kilogram of applesone-kilo apple. I checked again whether those items had actually been packed for mewhether they actually packed those items for me and theythere were nowhere to be found! By my calculationAs I observed, I was overcharged by 24.75 dollarsI was 24.75 dollars overcharged for the items I hadhave not purchased. I am attaching the receipt for your consideration and would like you to refund the overcharged amountrefund my amount next time I visit your supermarketmall. A mistake like this is not acceptable from a shop like yours. Please take the necessary steps to rectify this error and make sure it does not happen again. I look forward to getting a reply from you promptly. Yours faithfully, Gazelle NillaThanking you, Gazelle Nilla
Why this response received Band 6.5
The letter communicates its purpose immediately, covers every requested point, and supports the complaint with useful transaction details in an appropriately formal tone. Its main limitation is recurring awkward or inaccurate phrasing, alongside a dense single-block presentation. The highest priority is to organise the account and request into clear paragraphs while replacing unnatural expressions with precise, idiomatic wording.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose is clear, all three bullet points are fully addressed, and the requested refund is supported with relevant details.
Make the transaction date and refund arrangements more precise and avoid slightly excessive operational detail.
Coherence and Cohesion
The information follows a logical chronology and cohesive references generally make the complaint easy to follow, but the response is presented as one dense block.
Separate the opening, transaction account, discovered error, and requested action into purposeful paragraphs.
Lexical Resource
A good range of complaint and transaction vocabulary is used, though several collocations are awkward or imprecise.
Replace phrases such as refund my amount and cash queue with natural expressions such as issue a refund and checkout lane.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The letter uses varied sentence forms and remains clear, but article, agreement, and noun-form errors recur.
Proofread noun phrases and agreement carefully, especially expressions such as a 100-gram block of cheese and the items were nowhere to be found.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You recently went shopping at the local supermarket. When you got home and checked your bill, you found that you had been charged for items you did not purchase. Write a letter to the supermarket manager. In your letter:
- explain what has happened
- say how you feel about the error
- say what you would like the manager to do about it
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.