Some businesses observe that people who just finished college have a hard time interacting with colleagues in working as a team. What do you think are the reasons behind this? What are your suggestions to address this problem?
Sample Response
Working as a team member requires some extra skills and experiences and the fresh graduates from the colleges or universities often find it hard to work an efficient team member. In my opinion, this possibly happens because of the lack of professionalism & experiences and since the newly graduates switch from the university environment to a totally new job environment.
The team members of a business, most of the times work to achieve a goal and work accordingly. Experience as a team member of a large organisation is required to fully understand the responsibilities and spirit of a team. In a team, most of the members work as a whole rather than working individually and sometimes have no freedom to work spontaneously. In the university perimeters, students lead a free academic life and have little experience in working in a team. They are often given assignments that require more than one students to work together but this is totally different compared to working in a business organizations, because in the university they are mostly friends or classmates and in an office team there are superiors and the fresh graduate often find themselves in a situation where they think they are not treated properly. They often try to implement their own ideas and as a team member, it is sometimes welcomed but not often.
There are some other reasons as well. For example, fresh graduates often think that their superiors are just trying to boss around them and have little friendly attitudes. Another reason is that switching from one environment to completely different one is some time distressful and it takes times to adopt to the new environment. But the college or university graduate students are often placed in a team as a member from the very beginning of their joining date. I think they should be given some time to adjust the working environment and to find themselves comfortable in the new environment.
IELTS Writing Correction
- 1. Use uncountable noun Original: skills and experiences Suggested revision: skills and experience Why it matters: 'Experience' is uncountable when it means accumulated practical knowledge.
- 2. Add role preposition Original: work an efficient team member Suggested revision: work efficiently as a team member Why it matters: The role requires 'as', and the adverb 'efficiently' modifies 'work'.
- 3. Add adjustment preposition Original: to adjust the working environment Suggested revision: to adjust to the working environment Why it matters: The verb 'adjust' takes 'to' before the environment being accommodated.
- 4. Correct noun form Original: professionalism & experiences Suggested revision: professionalism and experience Why it matters: 'Experience' is uncountable in this context, and the conjunction should be written out.
- 5. Use adjective form Original: the newly graduates Suggested revision: new graduates Why it matters: 'New' is the adjective required to modify the plural noun 'graduates'.
- 6. Clarify teamwork phrase Original: most of the members work as a whole Suggested revision: most team members work together Why it matters: This phrasing expresses collective work more directly and naturally.
- 7. Correct word choice Original: university perimeters Suggested revision: university environment Why it matters: 'Perimeters' means boundaries, while the intended meaning is the academic setting.
- 8. Use singular after one Original: more than one students Suggested revision: more than one student Why it matters: 'More than one' is followed by a singular countable noun.
- 9. Match article and noun Original: a business organizations Suggested revision: a business organisation Why it matters: The article 'a' requires a singular noun.
- 10. Correct place phrase Original: because in the university Suggested revision: because at university Why it matters: 'At university' is the natural phrase for the academic context described.
- 11. Fix number agreement Original: the fresh graduate often find themselves Suggested revision: fresh graduates often find themselves Why it matters: The plural reflexive pronoun requires the plural subject and verb form.
- 12. Use natural wording Original: have little friendly attitudes Suggested revision: show little friendliness Why it matters: This expression communicates the perceived lack of friendliness idiomatically.
Suggested Rewrites
- skills and experiences skills and experience
- work an efficient team member work efficiently as a team member
- to adjust the working environment to adjust to the working environment
- professionalism & experiences professionalism and experience
- the newly graduates new graduates
- most of the members work as a whole most team members work together
Why this response received Band 6.0
The response explains several plausible reasons for graduates' teamwork difficulties, especially the contrast between university and workplace hierarchies, and its ideas generally progress coherently. However, the solution side is limited mainly to giving newcomers time to adjust, while frequent awkward or inaccurate sentences reduce precision; prioritise developing two concrete workplace interventions and editing for agreement, articles, and sentence boundaries.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Detailed feedback by IELTS writing criterion after the annotated essay.
Task Response
The causes are relevant and reasonably developed, but the response gives only one narrow and briefly explained solution.
Add and develop concrete measures such as induction training, mentoring, or structured team projects, explaining how each addresses an identified cause.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response follows a generally understandable progression, although the long central paragraph combines too many ideas and weakens focus.
Separate the university-workplace contrast from the discussion of hierarchy and attitudes, giving each paragraph a clear controlling idea.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is adequate for discussing teamwork and workplace adjustment, but inaccurate collocations and word forms are noticeable throughout.
Replace awkward phrases such as work an efficient team member and newly graduates with natural, correctly formed alternatives.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The response uses both simple and complex forms, but frequent agreement, article, plural, and sentence-structure errors reduce control.
Break up long sentences and check every clause for a complete structure, accurate agreement, and appropriate article use.