Saturday, January 19, 2008

IELTS letter: Bad meal in a restaurant

You took your family to a near-by restaurant. You were disappointed with the meal and wish to complain to the manager.
Write a letter to the manager of the restaurant. In the letter
- explain why you were at the restaurant
- describe the problems
- write about the action you want the manager to take
Write at least 150 words.
You do NOT need to write your own address.
Begin your letter as follows:
Dear Sir or Madam,

Dear Sir or Madam,
On July 15th my family and I visited your establishment to have a traditional celebration of my sister’s birthday. Since she lives in France we annually go to this restaurant, because we always considered it as the most classy French cuisine place. Having the onion soup there is also our family tradition because my sister loved it very much before her moving to France. I suppose, you can imagine our disappointment when we found the onion soup absolutely inedible last time. Firstly, it was cold. Secondly, it seemed your chef did not stir it well while cooking, so there were some clogs of flour. The last but not the least, its taste made us to suggest that the cook used artificial instant soup base. We asked our waitress about the reasons soup is so awful and she told the cook of current shift has changed and this is the vision of the soup of the new one.
It is highly unlikely this new chef with his vision is suitable for such famous restaurant as yours. I recommend changing or sending him to training in order your customers could further enjoy genuine French cuisine.
Faithfully yours,
Anna Frank

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

IELTS Essay: Information Technologies lead to social problems?

The age of Information Technology has taken a lot of people by surprise. While it has become a way of life for some, others know very little about it and may be unlikely to learn. Eventually we will have a polarised society and this will lead to serious social problems.
To what extent do you agree with this statement?


Our highly informatized era became quite a shock for many of us. At the time one part of society uses new means of information very actively, other people stay in the dark without any chance to make an approach to understanding new technologies. There is a raising awareness of does this problem have a potential danger of slicing the society into two parts which would never understand each other.
It is the fact that many of everyday activities became available for computer users only. For example, if you are a university student, you are supposed to submit your term paper as typed and printed document, they no longer accept hand-written papers. Furthermore, some manufacturers do not distribute information leaflets, but give a website address on their products’ packs, thus only the Internet users can have an access for product details. The last but not the least, the computer skills became a crucial requirement for employment in urban areas.
Meanwhile, inhabitants of rural areas do not need new means of acquiring information. Their work and everyday activities do not demand using computers. For example, a farmer can use radio to hear news and ordinary mail to communicate.
Taking into account the fact not every citizen can use new information technologies, governments would not change the traditional ways of interaction with their people. It is highly unlikely people would no longer have a possibility to vote by filling papers by hand or do other activities, important for their citizenship.
Informatization of society affected those, who have a need of instant information exchange. People, whose lifestyle do not require any haste in communication have an opportunity to use traditional ways of it. I am assured that as long as situation does not make others to change their way of life against their will, there is no risk of receiving serious social problems.

This essay has been checked and graded by the real IELTS teacher. See bellow the teacher's comments:
This is a good essay. The only improvement it needs is length reduction (from 304 words to 250-265 words) and perhaps paying more attention to grammar. Overall, looks like a Band 7 essay.
For the whole list of teacher's comments click here.