Unit 1. Letters of Apology
Additional Practice Tests.
Below, you will find additional practice test questions for making apologies. Try to write some letters yourself and try to get them corrected by an IELTS teacher, or you can use the essay marking and correction service.
Focus Question 6. Late University Assignment.
Dear Professor Ellis,
My name is Michelle Wise, and I am a final year student on your English Composition course. The reason I am writing is because I am unable to meet the one-week deadline that you set for the methodology assignment, which is due to be handed in on Monday.
Please accept my sincere apologies but the delay is unavoidable. Please allow me to explain: Earlier this week, I had a terrible car accident, which was very traumatic because the concussion caused me to be hospitalised for observation. Although I have no serious injuries, I was instructed by my doctor to recuperate for a few more days. In addition, I have a maths exam on Monday, which adds to my hectic workload.
Despite the aforementioned obstacles, I have nevertheless made good progress on the assignment having already read and made notes on the reading materials you suggested. Thus, if you could grant me a week’s extension, I would be extremely grateful.
Again, allow me to express my deepest apologies for the delay. I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours sincerely,
Michelle Wise.
Practice Task 1. Missed a Business Meeting.
Dear Albert,
I am just writing to let you know how sorry I am for letting you down last Tuesday. As you know, we were supposed to meet at the Crown Prince Hotel in Hamburg at 1.pm, but I was unable to attend or even call you for the following frustrating reasons:
To start with, even though I gave myself plenty of time to get to the airport, I was not prepared for the horrendous traffic congestion on the M62 motorway, which caused me to arrive late and miss the flight. On top of that, I could not call you because I must have left my mobile phone in the taxi. Please try to be a little understanding as I really could not have done anything to contact you in Hamburg. Naturally, I feel really awful about disappointing you, but it was beyond my control.
To resolve matters, I hope you can forgive me for not showing up, and I promise it won't happen again. Finally, I suggest we rearrange things for next Tuesday at the same time and place.
Please let me know if you agree to these new arrangements.
Yours sincerely,
Anthony Green.
Practice Task 2. Apologising to Neighbours.
Dear Mr. Smith,
I am writing in response to your letter that I read this morning. First of all, let me begin by offering you my most sincere apologies for disturbing you last night. In fact, I cannot find words strong enough to convey my feelings of regret for spoiling your peace and quiet. Naturally, you are quite right to complain because as you mention in your letter, the noise coming from my house out-stretched what most people would deem reasonable in a quiet residential area. May I assure you, this will not be repeated in the future. You have my word on that.
As you may have deduced, we had a birthday celebration at our house last night, and although we had planned for the guests to leave by ten o clock in the evening, things just carried on as there were so many people enjoying themselves. I hadn't realised that the noise would be so disruptive to you.
Finally, when we plan celebrations in the future, we will either plan for them to take place in the afternoon if the venue is home, or we will book an outside venue for the evenings.
Once again, my deepest apologies for last night.
Sincere regards,
Miss Jones.
Practice Task 3. Damaged Library Book.
Dear Sir or Madam,
My name is Mr. Paul Green, and I am writing to inform you that I have damaged a book I recently borrowed from your library collection. The title in question is 'The Road Less Travelled', which is authored by M.Scott Peck. When I borrowed the book, I noticed that you had many different editions on the shelf, but the copy that I loaned is the 1996 hardback edition.
First of all, let me please apologise for damaging the book because I feel quite annoyed with myself for not being more prudent. In fact, the cover of the book is probably beyond repair, and a fair number of the pages in the first chapter are now illegible due to the inherent damage. Unfortunately, I accidentally spilled coffee onto the book. Naturally, I take full responsibility and would like to make amends in any way I can.
Thus, please let me know what you would like to do once you have made a full assessment of the damage. if you like, I would be prepared to pay for a replacement
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
Yours faithfully,
Mr. Paul Green.
Practice Task 4. Apologise for Missing a Friend's Wedding.
Dear Ali,
I'm writing to tell you how sorry I am that I missed your wedding day last Saturday. I feel absolutely dreadful for letting you down my friend. I tried to call you to explain what had happened, but it seems you didn't answer my calls. Maybe this is because you are still on your honeymoon. Please understand that I really am sincerely sorry, and I can't apologise enough for missing your special day. I ought to have been there, I know that.
Despite my absence, I'm hope you all still had a wonderful time, but let me please explain why I was unable to make it. Unfortunately, as soon as I arrived in Singapore for your wedding, I fell violently sick, and I was admitted to hospital. I'm fine now, but it ruined my plans.
Anyway, Ali, I hope you can forgive and forget what has happened as it was unavoidable. Perhaps I can make up to you and your wife by inviting you to stay in my holiday villa for a week.
Okay, my friend, please call me now you know how sorry I am.
Best regards to you and your lovely new wife,
Nigel.
Practice Test 5. Letter of Complaint.
Vocabulary · a recalled product: a defective product that is taken off the market ·malfunctions: failures in operation · faulty: defective · apology: an admission of error or discourtesy accompanied by an expression of regret e.g. public apology · annoyance: Being bothered by something or someone e.g. She expressed annoyance at the slow service ·dissatisfaction: a feeling of unhappiness or disapproval, e.g. She expressed her dissatisfaction with the service Letters of Complaint Useful Phrases and Vocabulary · satisfaction: a happy or pleased feeling because of something that you did or something that happened to you ·attitude: the way you think and feel about someone or something · quality: how good or bad something is · to portray: to describe (someone or something) in a particular way ·incompetence: lack of the ability to do something well · to attend to: to give needed help or attention to (someone or something) · severe: very bad, serious, or unpleasant · to compensate: to give money or something else of value to (someone) in return for something ·to demand: to require (something) · hazardous: dangerous · a lawn mower: a machine used for cutting the grass on lawns · assembly: the act of connecting together the parts of something (such as a machine) · to chuckle: to laugh in a quiet way · a welded edge: to join pieces of metal together by heating the edges until they begin to melt and then pressing them together · a coupler: something combined with something else · to misuse: to use (something) incorrectly · hassle: to bother or annoy (someone) constantly or repeatedly
Common Expressions.
Opening a letter of complaint.
Introducing your complaint.
- I am writing this letter to protest about the plan to ...
- I am writing this letter to express my disappointment in relation to the proposal to ...
- I am sorry to have to inform you of the following unfortunate situation: Last week when I visited your ...
- I am writing to express my unhappiness about your decision / plans to ...
- I am writing to make clear / to lodge my displeasure (show my irritation / frustration) at your plans to ...
- I am sorry to have to complain in relation to the following unfortunate situation, which occurred at your ...
- I am writing in connection with an unfortunate experience I had when I visited your store / business etc...
- I am writing this letter to bring to your attention my disapproval of your decision / proposal to ...
- I am writing this letter to complain about an incident that happened on (date) at (time) at (place)
- I am writing this letter to express my dissatisfaction with the poor service I experienced when I ...
- I am writing in connection with ...
Developing your complaint.
- The reasons for my complaint / objections are three-fold: First of all, ... Also, ... In addition, ...
- Unfortunately, I found the standard of professionalism and workmanship to fall well below what I had come to consider to be an acceptable level in regard to ...
- I am very disappointed with the poor standard(s) of service / workmanship / professionalism I encountered when I visited your ...
- Something that I feel particularly aggrieved about is that ...
- Another source of real dissatisfaction is that ...
- This was not what I had expected. In fact, it is quite the opposite;
- Although, according to your staff, I should have got / the product should have / the service should have included, in fact it fell short of this expectation...
- Notwithstanding the fact that I was assured by your sales assistant / employee that ...
- On using your service / product, I was quite surprised to discover that, despite being assured by your company employees that it would work perfectly, when I got it home, in fact the product failed to ...
Asking the recipient to take action:
- I sincerely hope that you will take my complaint seriously
- I trust you will take appropriate action to remedy this situation in the immediate future so that we can put this unfortunate incident / event(s) behind us.
- I am fully confident that we can overcome this unfortunate situation and come to a mutually agreeable resolution. I trust it would not be inconvenient for you to now act to redress this problem by ...
- I would be sincerely grateful if you could ...
- I hope you will give your immediate attention to this matter...
- I fully anticipate that you will take remedial steps to resolve this matter to our mutual satisfaction. I therefore expect you to ...
- In view of these circumstances, I trust you will see that it would be unfair if I were not given some kind of compensation for my loss / inconvenience ... Therefore, it only seems fair that you provide me with ...
- As a valued customer, I fully expect that you will provide me with ...
- In order to satisfactorily address my grievance, I feel that what would be fair (what would suit me best) would be if you were to ...