You took your family to a nearby restaurant. You were disappointed with the meal and wish to complain to the manager. Write a letter to the manager of the restaurant. In your letter: - explain why you were at the restaurant - describe the problems - write about the action you want the manager to take
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam,
My name is Leslie Aston, and I am writingI am Leslie Aston, writing to express my disappointment with my recent dining experience at your restaurant. My family and I visited your restaurantestablishment last Saturday evening to celebrate my daughter’s birthdaya special occasion, but unfortunately, our experience was disappointingfell short of expectations. I am hoping that you will investigate the matter and respond with an appropriate remedytake proper action regarding this.
Upon arrival, we were greeted warmly by your staff and seated promptly. However, ourthe problems began when we received our meals. The food was served cold and lacked the freshness and flavour we had anticipated. In addition,Additionally, several items were missing from our order, which further detracted from our dining experience.
As a loyal patron of your restaurant, I believe it is important to bring these issues to your attention. I understand that mistakes can happen, but the quality of our meal was unacceptable given the reputation of your establishment.
In light of these issues, I kindly request that you offer a refund or voucher and review the kitchen procedurestake appropriate action to address the shortcomings we experienced Deleteduring our visit. This may include reviewing your kitchen procedures, ensuring proper food handling and preparation, and providing additional staff training to prevent similar incidents in the future.
I trust that you will take our feedback seriously and ensure these problems do not happen againmake the necessary improvements to maintain the high standards that your restaurant is known for. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Yours faithfully,
Leslie Aston
Why this response received Band 8.0
The complaint is clear, well organised, and appropriately formal, with precise details about the cold food, missing items, and suitable preventive action. Its main limitation is a lack of specificity about the occasion and the remedy sought, alongside minor repetition in otherwise controlled language. Name the occasion and request a concrete outcome such as an apology, refund, or voucher while tightening repeated formal phrasing.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The complaint achieves its purpose clearly: it explains the visit, identifies concrete meal problems, and requests appropriate action. The only limitation is that the “special occasion” is not named, so the background could be slightly more specific.
Name the occasion and, if appropriate, add a clear customer remedy such as a refund, apology, or voucher.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response is well organised into clear paragraphs, with smooth progression from background to problem, impact, requested action, and closing. Cohesion is controlled and rarely intrusive.
Reduce slight repetition of “experience” and “establishment” to make the letter more concise.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is formal, precise, and well suited to a restaurant complaint, including “dining experience”, “detracted”, and “shortcomings”. A few phrases are generic or slightly formulaic.
Replace broad phrases like “proper action” with exact customer-service outcomes.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
Grammar is accurate across a good range of complex sentences. Minor improvements are possible in concision and punctuation, but errors do not impede communication.
Keep the same range while tightening long formal phrases that repeat the same idea.
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You took your family to a nearby restaurant. You were disappointed with the meal and wish to complain to the manager. Write a letter to the manager of the restaurant. In your letter:
- explain why you were at the restaurant
- describe the problems
- write about the action you want the manager to take
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.