Your office building doesn't have parking available. Write a letter to the manager. In your letter: - Explain the problem - Suggest a solution - Say why parking will benefit all employees
Sample Response
Dear Sir/ Madam,
I am currently working for SHB Company located on the 25th floor of our building. I am writing this letter to inform you of the inconvenience that our employees have due to the lack of parking facilities in the building.
Most workers in my company drive cars to work and because there are no parking spaces available within the territory of the building, the nearest place they can park is at the supermarket 600m away from the office. This means that an average worker has to walk an average 1.2km daily to get to and from their car.
I suggest that we should use the vacant land at the back of the office as a temporary car park while thinking of a more long-term solution. I believe having a parking lot next to the office would save a lot of time and energy for the employees and allow them to work more effectively.
Thank you for your consideration and I am looking forward to hearing back from you. Yours sincerely,
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Correct the salutation Original: Dear Sir/ Madam, Suggested revision: Dear Sir or Madam, Why it matters: The conventional formal salutation uses or rather than a slash.
- 2. Fix the collocation Original: inconvenience that our employees have Suggested revision: inconvenience our employees experience Why it matters: People experience inconvenience rather than have it in this context.
- 3. Split the long sentence Original: drive cars to work and because Suggested revision: drive to work. Because Why it matters: A sentence break clearly separates the general situation from its consequence.
- 4. Use natural wording Original: within the territory of the building Suggested revision: on the building's premises Why it matters: Premises is the natural formal term for the land belonging to a building.
- 5. Remove repetition Original: an average worker has to walk an average 1.2km daily Suggested revision: the average worker has to walk about 1.2 kilometres each day Why it matters: This revision removes the repeated use of average and improves formal readability.
- 6. Use concise suggestion form Original: I suggest that we should use Suggested revision: I suggest using Why it matters: Suggest is naturally followed by a gerund in this concise formal construction.
- 7. Clarify the process Original: while thinking of a more long-term solution Suggested revision: while a longer-term solution is developed Why it matters: The passive wording identifies the ongoing planning process more clearly.
- 8. Keep terminology consistent Original: parking lot Suggested revision: car park Why it matters: Using car park maintains consistency with the earlier British-English term.
- 9. Separate closing sentences Original: your consideration and I am looking forward Suggested revision: your consideration. I look forward Why it matters: Two independent closing statements should be separated, and the simple present is conventional here.
- 10. Match the sign-off Original: sincerely Suggested revision: faithfully Why it matters: Yours faithfully matches a letter addressed to an unnamed recipient.
Suggested Rewrites
- Dear Sir/ Madam, Dear Sir or Madam,
- inconvenience that our employees have inconvenience our employees experience
- drive cars to work and because drive to work. Because
- within the territory of the building on the building's premises
- an average worker has to walk an average 1.2km daily the average worker has to walk about 1.2 kilometres each day
- I suggest that we should use I suggest using
Why this response received Band 8.0
The letter is focused, professional, and easy to follow, explaining the parking problem with useful figures and offering a practical temporary solution with clear employee benefits. The main limitation is occasional awkward or repetitive phrasing, so the highest-priority improvement is to choose more natural collocations and remove repetition, particularly around average and the location of the parking area.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter maintains an appropriate formal purpose and develops the problem, proposed solution, and employee benefits clearly.
Explain briefly why the vacant land is feasible as a car park to make the proposed solution even more persuasive.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response follows a clear problem-solution-benefit sequence, and each paragraph has a distinct communicative role.
Streamline the second paragraph by removing the repeated use of average and presenting the distance calculation more directly.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and generally precise, although a few combinations such as within the territory of the building sound unnatural.
Use more idiomatic workplace collocations, such as on the building premises or beside the office building.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Complex sentences are handled with strong control, and errors are rare and non-impeding.
Polish punctuation and formatting in the salutation and place the closing on a separate line.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
Your office building doesn't have parking available. Write a letter to the manager. In your letter:
- Explain the problem
- Suggest a solution
- Say why parking will benefit all employees
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.