You missed a flight due to a problem at the airport. Write a letter to the airline. In your letter: - describe what happened that caused you to miss the flight - explain how missing your flight affected you make it clear - what you would like the airline to do
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam, I am writing this letter to inform you that I missed my international flight to London on 17th January for a reason which was beyond my control and which actually transpired due to a problem at the airport. My flight was scheduled at 12:30 pm and I had arrived at the airport well in advance. At that pointSuddenly, I felt that I needed to eat something at the airport, and so I went to one of the nearbyupscale restaurants at the airport where airport security personnelsome security personnel of the airport asked everyone to stay there until further notice. I understandguess it was a security issue, which eventually forced me to missabandon my flight. As a resultAnyway, missing the flightfight caused me to miss an important product-launch seminarseminar on launching a new product. SinceSo, since I missed the flight for reasonsbecause of a reason, which was beyond my control and was caused byhad something to do with the airport authoritiesauthority, I would truly appreciate it if you could issueif you give me a full refund of the ticket pricerefund for my ticket. I am attaching the ticket with this letter for your convenience. Yours faithfully, Le Nhan Tong
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter has a clear formal purpose, covers every bullet point, and uses a suitably courteous request for reimbursement. Its main limitation is that the airport incident and the consequences of missing the seminar are only briefly explained, while some wording and linking are repetitive or awkward. The highest-priority improvement is to develop the disruption more specifically and organise the content into distinct, smoothly connected paragraphs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose is clear, the tone is suitably formal, and all three bullet points are addressed, though the incident and its impact receive limited development.
Explain the security restriction and the practical consequences of missing the seminar in more concrete detail.
Coherence and Cohesion
The information progresses logically from the flight circumstances to the consequence and requested remedy, but it appears as one block and uses some mechanical transitions.
Use distinct paragraphs for the incident, its impact, and the refund request, with less reliance on transitions such as 'Anyway' and 'So'.
Lexical Resource
The letter uses a good range of generally precise formal vocabulary, although repetition and awkward choices such as 'because of a reason' reduce naturalness.
Replace repeated wording about the airport and lack of control with more concise, idiomatic expressions.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of complex sentences is handled with generally good control, and the few errors do not impede meaning.
Polish conditional and relative-clause structures, particularly the refund request, for consistently accurate formal expression.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You missed a flight due to a problem at the airport. Write a letter to the airline. In your letter:
- describe what happened that caused you to miss the flight
- explain how missing your flight affected you make it clear
- what you would like the airline to do
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.