You recently took a part-time job working for a local company. After a few weeks, you realised there were some problems with the job. Write a letter to the manager of the company. In your letter: - explain why you took the job - describe the problems that you experienced - suggest what could be done about them
Sample Response
Dear Mr Chen, I am Rona Lyn Olivar, one of the part-time receptionists at your Sea View Hotel. I have been working here since July and I took the jobI have taken the job to gain some experience that I thought would be helpful for my future career. I am writing to draw your attention to a few issues I have encountered in the hotel. I hope that you willI am hoping that you would take steps to solve these. I have noticed that some of the staff on the night shiftduty staff at night shift sleep inside the staff quartersinside the hotel's quarter instead of being at the reception deskarea. DeleteLiterally, Lindsay and I,I and Lindsay- who is also a new employee, work and manage everything at night. They do not even botherThey even do not bother to come to the reception area at peakbusy hours when we have an influx of guests - usually on Friday nights. I believe this is against the rules. Moreover, breakfast is supposed to be ready before 7:00 am but it is not the case. Sometimes the guests have to wait untiltill 8:00 am for breakfast to arrive. Some of the guests have lodged complaints regarding this. I thought you should be notified about these irregularities. Duty officers on the night shift should be reminded of their responsibilities and supervised more closelyshould be reprimanded and warned so that they carry out their dutiesexecute their duties. In addition, please reviewBesides, look at the recent complaints regarding the delay in breakfast serviceserving and talk to the head chef. I look forward to your response regarding this matter. Yours sincerely, Rona Olivar
Why this response received Band 7.0
The letter addresses the workplace concerns thoroughly, using specific examples of absent night staff, delayed breakfasts, and practical action for management. Its main limitations are the single-block presentation, some blunt requests, and uneven grammar and collocation, which make an otherwise clear complaint less professional. Organise the issues and solutions into separate paragraphs, soften the recommendations, and proofread tense and noun phrases.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter fully covers the reason for taking the job, the night-shift and breakfast problems, and suggested managerial action. The tone is generally suitable for a manager, though a few requests sound slightly blunt.
Keep the specific examples but phrase the suggested actions as professional requests rather than direct orders.
Coherence and Cohesion
The progression is clear, moving from role and purpose to problems and solutions. However, it is presented as one long block, and a few cohesive links such as “Moreover” and “Besides” are mechanical.
Split the letter into clear paragraphs for introduction, night-shift issue, breakfast issue, and requested action.
Lexical Resource
There is good workplace vocabulary such as “influx of guests”, “lodged complaints”, and “irregularities”. Some collocations are inaccurate, including “hotel’s quarter”, “busy hours”, and “execute their duties”.
Use natural hotel-management collocations such as “staff quarters”, “peak hours”, and “carry out their duties”.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The letter uses a range of complex structures, but grammatical control is uneven. Errors occur in tense choice, articles, pronoun order, and sentence construction.
Check tense consistency and noun phrases, especially after prepositions such as “on the night shift” and “in the reception area”.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You recently took a part-time job working for a local company. After a few weeks, you realised there were some problems with the job. Write a letter to the manager of the company. In your letter:
- explain why you took the job
- describe the problems that you experienced
- suggest what could be done about them
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.