You recently spent the night at an expensive hotel. There was a problem with your room, but the hotel staff could not do anything about it. Write a letter to the hotel manager. In your letter: - Describe the problem. - Explain what happened - when you asked the hotel staff for help. - Say what you would like the manager to do.
Sample Response
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing this letter to inform you aboutlet you know the problem I faced during my stay at your hotel a week ago. I hope you will consider this and take appropriate actiondo the needful.
Let me explain in more detail. As I was having a meeting with a potential investor for my business, I booked a room in your five-star hotel assuming that there will not be any minor loopholes. To my disappointment, as soon as I arrived, I noticedobserved that the chairs in the room were brokenthe chairs were broken in the room and I immediately informed the dutyreporting manager to replace themthose because my clients were likely to sit on those chairs the very next day. Indeed, they came and inspectedmonitored the situation; however, they told me that the hotel wasis full and they did not haveare not having any alternative roomsoptions at that timecurrently. I was so upsetdepressed that I could not sleep at night and had to cancel the meeting.
Though I can understand that exceptions are there, it was unacceptable atnot expected from a luxurylavish hotel like yours. It would be great if I could receiveif I can get compensation for this because I suffered a substantial business lossfaced a huge business loss due to this incident.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Yours faithfully,
Why this response received Band 7.0
The complaint has a clear purpose and develops every required point with a specific room problem, the staff response, and a requested remedy. Organisation is easy to follow, but unnatural vocabulary choices and recurring grammatical slips weaken the otherwise professional message; the highest priority is to replace awkward expressions with precise hotel-service language and tighten the long central paragraph.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The letter clearly describes the broken chairs, explains the staff's inability to resolve the issue, and requests compensation in an appropriate formal register.
Specify the form or amount of compensation sought and explain the practical impact without overstating the emotional reaction.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response follows a logical complaint sequence and uses paragraphing and linking words effectively, although the central paragraph is overloaded.
Divide the long account into separate paragraphs for the room problem and the staff response to sharpen progression.
Lexical Resource
There is sufficient range for a formal complaint, but expressions such as 'minor loopholes,' 'reporting manager,' and 'lavish hotel' are imprecise or unnatural.
Use standard service vocabulary such as 'defects,' 'duty manager,' and 'luxury hotel' to improve precision.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
The writer uses varied complex structures with generally clear meaning, but tense, pronoun, and verb-form errors occur noticeably.
Review reported past events and conditional requests, using forms such as 'there would be no problems' and 'I would appreciate compensation.'
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IELTS General Training Writing Task 1
You recently spent the night at an expensive hotel. There was a problem with your room, but the hotel staff could not do anything about it. Write a letter to the hotel manager. In your letter:
- Describe the problem.
- Explain what happened
- when you asked the hotel staff for help.
- Say what you would like the manager to do.
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.