People in your area are having problems with their internet connection. Write a letter to the company which provides the connection. In your letter: - describe the problems - explain how they are affecting people - say what the company should do to help.
Sample Response
Dear Sir / Madam I am writing to complain about the poor internet service provided by your company. The internet connection has been down in the whole area since Monday 24th May, that is 5 days. I called more than ten times and your technical support team vainly promised to solve the problem. I am an online tutor of Arabic and I provide my services to many students around the world. Because of your faulty service, all my sessions were cancelled. Moreover, I had to make long-distance calls to apologize to the students, which caused considerable difficulty and embarrassment.. Furthermore, many of my neighbours work from home and with no internet connection their work and credability were greatly affected. I would therefore like you to send a team of technicians to resolve this issue. If you unable to do so within two days, then I am afraid we will all switch to another internet service provider. I look forward to hearing from you soon. Yours sincerely,
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Correct formal salutation Original: Dear Sir / Madam Suggested revision: Dear Sir or Madam, Why it matters: A formal unknown-recipient salutation uses ‘or’ and ends with a comma.
- 2. Use continuing-time tense Original: I called more than ten times Suggested revision: I have called more than ten times Why it matters: The present perfect better connects the repeated calls to the continuing outage.
- 3. Clarify failed promises Original: vainly promised Suggested revision: repeatedly but unsuccessfully promised Why it matters: This wording clearly conveys both the repetition and the lack of results.
- 4. Use natural job title Original: online tutor of Arabic Suggested revision: online Arabic tutor Why it matters: ‘Online Arabic tutor’ is the more natural compound job title.
- 5. Remove extra full stop Original: embarrassment.. Suggested revision: embarrassment. Why it matters: Only one full stop is needed at the end of the sentence.
- 6. Add missing verb Original: If you unable Suggested revision: If you are unable Why it matters: The conditional clause needs the linking verb ‘are’.
- 7. Complete formal sign-off Original: Yours sincerely, Suggested revision: Yours faithfully, [Your name] Why it matters: An unknown recipient calls for ‘Yours faithfully’ followed by the sender’s name.
- 8. Describe service precisely Original: poor Suggested revision: unreliable Why it matters: ‘Unreliable’ describes the recurring service failure more precisely than ‘poor’.
- 9. Use concise job term Original: team Suggested revision: staff Why it matters: ‘Technical support staff’ is a more concise collective term here.
- 10. Use direct wording Original: provide my services to many students around the world Suggested revision: teach students around the world Why it matters: The direct verb ‘teach’ conveys the same meaning more concisely.
- 11. Name the outage Original: faulty service Suggested revision: service outage Why it matters: ‘Service outage’ identifies the specific problem more accurately.
- 12. Clarify responsibility Original: all my sessions were cancelled Suggested revision: I had to cancel all my sessions Why it matters: The active form makes clear who cancelled the tutoring sessions.
Suggested Rewrites
- Dear Sir / Madam Dear Sir or Madam,
- I called more than ten times I have called more than ten times
- vainly promised repeatedly but unsuccessfully promised
- online tutor of Arabic online Arabic tutor
- embarrassment.. embarrassment.
- If you unable If you are unable
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter is direct, appropriately formal, and convincingly develops the outage, its effects on the writer and neighbours, and the action expected from the provider. Its main limitation is presentation and language polish, particularly the single-block organisation and several conspicuous grammatical or punctuation slips; clearer paragraphing and a final accuracy check would make the complaint more authoritative.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The complaint clearly fulfils its purpose, develops every bullet point with specific consequences, and requests a practical remedy in a suitably firm tone.
Add the writer's name after the closing and slightly refine the deadline statement to complete the professional presentation.
Coherence and Cohesion
The information progresses clearly from the outage to its consequences and the requested response, with effective though somewhat conspicuous linking.
Divide the letter into short functional paragraphs and avoid relying on successive additive linkers.
Lexical Resource
A good range of specific vocabulary communicates the complaint and its consequences precisely, with only occasional spelling or collocation problems.
Replace awkward wording such as vainly promised and correct credibility to improve naturalness and accuracy.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Varied sentence structures are generally well controlled and meaning is consistently clear, despite a few noticeable omissions and punctuation errors.
Proofread for missing verbs and sentence punctuation, particularly in If you are unable and around the salutation and date explanation.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
People in your area are having problems with their internet connection. Write a letter to the company which provides the connection. In your letter:
- describe the problems
- explain how they are affecting people
- say what the company should do to help.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.