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 Mrs Fischer, I am a part-time Financial Assistant in your office and I joined here almost three months ago. I am honoured to be considered a deserving employee in your well-regarded organisationreputed organisation. However, I am writing this letter to raise some concerns about the job. I am sure you would investigateprobe these issues and solve them. I was pleased to take the jobI delightfully took the job to work for an excellent company and I was offered an competitive salaryattractive remuneration. The prospects for professional developmentprospect for improvement and promotion was another reason I joined here. I have signed the employment contractcontract paper as a part-time employee and my office hours are from 11:00 am to 5:00 pm. However, the headBut the head of my department always forces me to come before 10:00 o'clock in the morning and this has become quite impossible for me. I have to drop off my son at his school at 8:30 am. I am not sure why the head of the department is ordering me to start workoffice before 10:00 am while he never shows up before 11:00 a.m.before 11:00 am? I am also shocked to face the unexpected requirementunforeseeable trouble of working until 9:00 pm to finish my scheduled task. Sometimes I have to stay at the officestay office till late hours while the whole office is deserted. I feel nervous to tell the department head not to force me to come to the officecome office before 10:00 am. That is why I am notifying you about this problem. I guess I should be given the same opportunities as those offeredas many opportunities as it is offered to other employees. I can fully devote myself to work harder but something unusual and unreasonable should not be imposed on me. I want your interventionintervene to have this problem resolved. I will be waiting to get a positive response from you. Sincerely yours, Sudip Pant
Why this response received Band 6.0
The letter clearly explains why the job was accepted and gives specific, persuasive detail about the contracted hours and repeated overtime. However, the requested remedy is only vague, the tone becomes accusatory in places, and frequent collocation and grammar errors weaken professional control. Make the request explicit—asking the manager to enforce the agreed schedule—and organise the letter into clear purpose, reasons, problems, and action paragraphs.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Achievement
The purpose, reasons, and problems are well developed, but the final suggested action is indirect and insufficiently specific.
Ask the manager directly to confirm and enforce the contracted 11:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. hours.
Coherence and Cohesion
Ideas follow a broadly logical order, though the letter is one long block and several links are repetitive or abrupt.
Use four short paragraphs and keep each one focused on a single bullet point or communicative function.
Lexical Resource
The vocabulary is varied, but awkward collocations and over-formal choices recur.
Prefer natural workplace phrases such as raise concerns, investigate, stay at the office, and intervene.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A range of structures is attempted, but article, preposition, agreement, and question-form errors are frequent.
Check verb patterns and prepositions, especially ask someone to do, stay at, come to, and intervention/intervene.
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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.