Cambridge English: Advanced
Check out students' answers to Flo-Joe's CAE Writing tasks with a teacher's feedback
Writing Class: Report
Task Type: Report
Question
You work in the sales department of a large company. You have been asked to reply to this memo from the company's Personnel Officer:
| INTERNAL MEMO From: Personnel Officer To: Sales Department Owing to recent changes within the company we are experiencing some problems with staff motivation. Please write a report giving your opinion of the following suggestions for improving staff morale:
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Write the report to the Personnel Officer. (220-260 words)
Makeover: Priscila
Read Priscila's answer to this question below. Try correcting the piece of writing yourself first: use the marking codes to think about what might be wrong (or what's good) about the piece of work. Then when you're ready, click the green buttons in the text for our feedback.
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Staff motivation has always been a much discussed subject, which has resulted in many articles and books, published by experienced and Famous specialists in the Human Resource field. Since I do not fit in this category, I can only bring to this report my own experiences with my staff of salesmen. - 1. A party for the whole department. I don't think it would be wise to give a party now that the company is facing economical WF 2. A weekend away for the most successful sales team. That suggestion sounds nice: it would cause impact rewarding team work PE 3. A monetary prize for the best salesperson. In my opinion, money is something that is rapidly spent and the source will soon be forgotten. Motivation should be something that endures over time and should be nurtured by the company throughout the year! Gd Besides that, it does not incentive WF I would keep your second suggestion and add a few things, like having a ceremony in the company, with all employees present, with appraisal given by the highest administration levels PE I would also include their family in the weekend, to show our winners that we understand that nothing can be done without the support of our family, and feel WW I sure hope I have added with my opinions and if you would like to discuss a little further about the ideas, feel free to call me or stop by my office. R |
Feedback
This is a nice report, Priscila, which addresses all of the ideas in the task and comes up with an original suggestion as well - this is a good thing to do!
The organisation of the report is fine and, apart from the opening sentences, what you write is relevant to the task. There are some errors in word formation (economic/economical; incentive/encourage; companies/company's) but on the plus side you are not afraid to take risks with the language.
One area to watch would be in terms of register, i.e. the level of formality. A report should be fairly formal and I have made some suggestions in places where you have seemed a little informal. "...feel free to call me or stop by my office...' would be perfect in an email, for example, but looks out of place in a report.
Marking Code
/\ Word(s) missing
- Omit word
C Capitalization
Gd Good
O Organisation
P Punctuation
PE Poorly expressed
R Register/Formality
SS Sentence Structure
S Spelling
T Tip (Not wrong but a suggestion)
WF Wrong form
WO Word order
WT Wrong tense
WW Wrong word