There have been several complaints about the reception area where visitors to your company arrive. Your manager has asked you to suggest how the reception area could be improved. Write a letter to your manager. In your letter: - describe the complaints that have been made - say why the reception area is important - suggest how the reception area could be improved
Sample Response
Dear Mr Reynold, I am writing to you regarding the complaints we have received about our reception arearegarding the complaints about our reception area that we have received over the past few months, and to suggest how we could address themto share my opinion about how to address them. Many visitors stated their dissatisfaction with our reception area and most of the complaints were due to the fact that the place is overcrowded, they often have to wait for a long, and there is no desk to fill in the forms. They also showed their concerns that only one receptionist cannot serve them promptly, and it kills their valuable time waiting and talking to the receptionist. DeleteNeedless to say, the reception areathe area where visitors arrive and wait is extremely important as it reflects our company's imagerepresents the image of our company and shapes visitors' first impression of the organisationgives the first impression of the organization. With this in mindTaking this into consideration, it is importanthighly important to enlarge the reception area by annexing the room next to it. Moreover, it would be a good idea to furnish the areaequip the place with additional seatingan additional sofa set and a desk for visitors to usefor the visitors to use. Finally, hiring a second receptionist would definitely be worthwhilewould be definitely worthwhile. I am hoping that you would look into the recently lodged complaints and implement the suggested changes to better serve the visitors and keep our reputation intact. Yours sincerely, Mark Almond
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter achieves its purpose very well, giving specific complaints, explaining the reception area's importance and proposing practical improvements in a consistently professional tone. Its strongest feature is the complete, relevant content, while the main limitation is presentation as one continuous paragraph alongside several awkward collocations and one comma-spliced list. Dividing the functional stages into paragraphs should be the first priority.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
All three bullet points are fully and directly addressed with specific complaints, a clear rationale and feasible improvements.
Strengthen the managerial request by briefly indicating which proposed improvement should be implemented first and why.
Coherence and Cohesion
The ideas follow a clear functional sequence and linking is generally effective, but the absence of paragraph breaks weakens organisation.
Use separate paragraphs for the complaints, the importance of reception and the proposed solutions.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is varied and suitably formal, though several combinations such as 'wait for a long' and 'kills their valuable time' are awkward.
Use more natural workplace collocations, such as 'wait a long time' and 'wastes visitors' valuable time'.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A good range of sentence structures is mostly controlled, although a comma-spliced list and some article or word-order errors reduce accuracy.
Separate the list of complaints into correctly coordinated clauses and place adverbs naturally, as in 'would definitely be worthwhile'.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
There have been several complaints about the reception area where visitors to your company arrive. Your manager has asked you to suggest how the reception area could be improved. Write a letter to your manager. In your letter:
- describe the complaints that have been made
- say why the reception area is important
- suggest how the reception area could be improved
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.