Write an Email
Select a scenario to open the writing screen. You'll have seven minutes once you start.
Training
Your company is offering a professional training course, but it takes place during your normal work shift.
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Financial Aid
You received your financial aid award letter for next semester, but the amount listed is lower than what you were told during your advising appointment. You want to understand why the amount changed and what you can do next.
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Insurance Enrollment
You meant to enroll in your company's health insurance plan during the open enrollment period, but a scheduling mix-up caused you to miss the deadline. You want to find out if late enrollment is still possible.
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Unauthorized Charge
While reviewing your monthly bank statement, you noticed a charge from a company you don't recognize. You want the bank to investigate the charge and refund it if it turns out to be unauthorized.
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Roommate
You share a dorm room with another student. Recently, your roommate has been inviting friends over late at night, and the noise is making it hard for you to sleep and study.
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Course Transfer
You recently started a university course, but you feel it is too advanced for your current level.
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Orientation Session
The mandatory orientation session for new students falls on the same afternoon as an appointment you cannot move. Missing orientation is listed as a registration hold. You want to email the international office about attending later.
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Student Discount Card
Your student discount card expired at the end of last term and the shops near campus no longer accept it. You are enrolled for another year and had assumed it renewed automatically. You want to email the student union about a new one.
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Tutoring
You were matched with a peer tutor for statistics, but the assigned time slot conflicts with a class you added this semester. You want to email the tutoring center to explain the conflict and ask about rescheduling.
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Volunteer
You signed up to volunteer at a community event, but an important family commitment has come up on the same day.
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Textbook Refund
You bought a textbook for one of your courses, but you later realized it is the wrong edition because the course syllabus did not specify which edition was required. The store's usual return window has already passed.
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Library Fine
You received a notice that your account has been charged a fine for a lost library book, but you are certain you returned the book on time. You want the library to review your account and remove the fine.
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Registration Fee
You paid the registration fee for an upcoming student conference two weeks ago, but you have not received a confirmation email or any information about the schedule. You want to make sure your registration went through.
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Lab Equipment
During your last chemistry lab session, you noticed that one of the balances was giving inconsistent readings, which affected your group's results. You want to email your professor to report the issue before the next lab.
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Wifi Outage
The wifi in your dormitory has been down for three days, making it difficult to complete online coursework and submit assignments on time. You want to email the campus IT office to report the outage and ask for an update.
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Photography
You joined a weekend photography course at a community center. However, the course was cancelled twice this month without much notice, and you are disappointed.
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Cafeteria
You eat lunch at your school cafeteria every day, but there are very few healthy choices for students. You think the menu should be improved.
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Schedule
You recently started a part-time job, but your work schedule now conflicts with one of your university classes. You would like to move to a different shift if possible.
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Recommendation
You are applying for a summer program and need a recommendation letter from one of your teachers. The deadline is coming soon.
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Bus Pass
Your campus bus pass stopped working when you tapped it on the bus this morning, even though it worked fine yesterday. You want to email the transportation office to find out why and get it fixed before your commute tomorrow.
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Vending Machine
You bought a snack from a vending machine in your dorm's lobby, but the machine took your money and didn't dispense the item. You want to email student services to ask about getting your money back.
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Advising Appointment
You have an academic advising appointment scheduled for next week, but you just found out you have a job interview at the exact same time. You want to email the advising office to reschedule.
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Billing
You recently noticed that your gym membership fee was charged twice on your bank statement this month. You want the manager to look into the issue and refund the extra charge.
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Extension
You have been sick for the past few days and are behind on the essay due tomorrow for Professor Kim's class. You want to ask for a short extension and suggest a new due date.
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Account Access
You are locked out of the student portal and cannot log in, but course registration closes tomorrow. You need this resolved quickly so you don't miss the deadline.
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Visa Documents
You have been accepted into a study abroad program next semester and need to apply for a student visa. You are not sure which documents the office needs from you or when they are due.
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Graduation
You're planning to graduate this spring but are unsure whether you've completed all the requirements, since your degree audit hasn't been updated recently. You want to email the graduation office to confirm your eligibility and ask about the application deadline.
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Parking
You recently purchased a parking permit for your university parking lot. However, your permit is not working, and you received a parking ticket even though you paid for the permit.
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Full Course
You would like to enroll in a university course that is important for your degree program. However, when you tried to register, you discovered that the course is already full.
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Dorm Key
You locked yourself out of your dorm room late last night and had to get a temporary key from the front desk. It's now been three days and you still haven't picked up your permanent replacement key, and you're worried about a late fee. You want to email Residence Life to ask about picking it up.
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Meal Plan
You signed up for the smallest meal plan available, but you've realized after two weeks that it isn't enough for a full semester of eating on campus. You want to email dining services to ask about switching to a larger plan.
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Gym Membership
You were charged for a gym membership renewal even though you cancelled it before the deadline last month. You want to email the recreation center to dispute the charge and ask for a refund.
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Thesis Advisor
Your assigned thesis advisor has been unreachable for several weeks, and you have an upcoming proposal deadline. You want to email the graduate program coordinator to explain the situation and ask about reassigning your advisor.
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Alumni Event
You'd like to attend an upcoming alumni networking event, but the invitation didn't specify whether guests are allowed or what the dress code is. You want to email the alumni relations office to ask for these details before you register.
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Mailroom Package
A package you were expecting was marked as delivered to the campus mailroom four days ago, but no collection notice appeared in your pigeonhole. The tracking record shows it was signed for. You want to email the mailroom.
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Laundry Card
You topped up your laundry card on Monday, but the machines in your building now read it as empty. You still have the receipt.
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Locker Assignment
Everyone in your swimming class received an email with their locker number two weeks ago, but yours never arrived. You have been leaving your bag on a bench during practice. You want to email the athletics office to sort it out.
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Bicycle Registration
You have started cycling to campus and have been warned that unregistered bikes are tagged and removed from the racks. You bought the bike secondhand and have no purchase receipt. You want to email campus security about registering it.
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Lost Property
You left a notebook in a fourth-floor study carrel on Sunday evening. It was gone when you returned on Monday, and it holds the only copy of your research notes.
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Guest Pass
Your sister is visiting for three nights next month and you would like her to stay in your room. The handbook mentions guest passes but not how far ahead to apply.
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Chores
You and your roommate, Priya, split apartment chores when you moved in, but lately you've been doing almost all of the cleaning while she has been busy with a demanding new job. Simply asking her to do more hasn't worked, so you want to propose a new system that accounts for her schedule.
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Accommodation
You have ADHD and have been using an extended-time accommodation on exams through the disability services office all semester. This week you learned the accommodation wasn't applied to your upcoming midterm because your professor never received the paperwork the office was supposed to send. The exam is in three days.
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Grade
You received your midterm paper back and noticed the grade doesn't match the feedback comments, which were mostly positive. After reviewing the rubric yourself, you believe a scoring error was made on one section.
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Supervision Gap
Your supervisor is on research leave for the whole of next term, and your thesis draft falls due in the middle of it. The department has not appointed anyone to cover her students. Dr. Ferreira works in the closest area to yours, but he has no obligation to take you on and already supervises four students.
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Office Space
You have worked from the library since you started, while two desks in the graduate office are held for students who finished last year and rarely come in. Asking for one means naming colleagues who still hold keys, and the office manager allocated those desks herself.
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Teaching Load
You are down to teach three seminar groups next term while finishing your dissertation. Two colleagues at the same stage teach one group each. Asking to be reduced means the third group has to go to somebody, and the timetable has already been circulated to students.
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Shift
Your manager, Ms. Delgado, asked you in a group message if you could cover an extra shift this weekend because a coworker called in sick. You already have plans that weekend that you aren't able to change.
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Data Sharing
A colleague in another group holds survey data that would let you test your model without repeating a year of fieldwork. She has not published from it yet, so releasing it early costs her something real, and you have no formal claim on it at all.
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Fee Waiver
You missed the registration deadline by two days because the payment portal rejected your card three times, and you have screenshots of each failure. The fee is substantial. The published policy grants waivers only in exceptional circumstances, and the registry decides case by case.
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Lab Access
Your experiment needs readings taken twelve hours apart, which the building's opening hours make impossible. Out-of-hours access requires a named staff member to take responsibility for you, and the last student granted it left a furnace running overnight.
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Software License
Your interview study needs transcription software the department does not hold a license for. A single seat costs more than the group's annual software budget, and nobody else would use it. The alternative is transcribing sixty hours of interviews by hand.
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Venue Change
Registrations for the graduate symposium have passed ninety and the room you booked seats sixty. The large hall is free that afternoon but is held provisionally for a department event that has not confirmed. Moving would mean asking that department to give it up.
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Overpayment
You received your refund check this semester and it was $600 more than what you expected based on your financial aid award letter. After checking, you believe it's an error rather than aid you're actually entitled to.
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Double Booking
You booked the media lab, Room 214, for your club's Thursday afternoon workshop three weeks ago, but you just found out another student organization booked the same room for the same time slot through a different system. Your workshop has twenty people registered and can't easily be moved.
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Lost Data
You went to pull last week's trial results from the shared lab drive this morning and found the folder empty, with no record of when or how the files disappeared. You've checked with the two other students who have access, and neither of them touched it either. The data would take roughly a week to re-collect.
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Ambiguous Rubric
The rubric for your upcoming case study assignment lists "demonstrates strategic thinking" as a graded category, but gives no further detail about what that specifically means or how it differs from the "analysis" category listed separately. You want to understand the distinction before you start writing, rather than guess and risk losing points on something you could have clarified in advance.
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Citation
While doing a final read-through of a paper due tomorrow, you realize one paragraph closely paraphrases a source without a citation, which you must have forgotten to add. You want to flag this to your professor before submitting rather than risk it being flagged as plagiarism later.
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Probation
You were placed on academic probation after a difficult semester in which you were hospitalized for three weeks, which you didn't report to the university at the time because you didn't know you could. You've since recovered and want to petition to have the probation status reconsidered, with documentation from your doctor available.
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Stipend
You're a graduate teaching assistant and were supposed to receive your monthly stipend on the 1st. It's now been eight days with no payment, and rent is due in three days.
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Misattribution
During today's class, your professor praised a specific analytical approach from your team's presentation, but mistakenly credited it to a different student who didn't work on that section. Several classmates now think that student came up with it, and you designed and wrote that entire part yourself. You want the record corrected without making a big deal of it publicly.
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Conflict
Your business strategy class assigned you to a real local company as a consulting client for the semester. This week you realized the company is a direct competitor of the retailer where you work part-time, and some of the strategy work could touch on information relevant to your employer. You want to flag this before doing any more work on the project.
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Misdelivery
You noticed a package addressed to a neighbor in a different unit sitting in front of your door, and the shipping label indicates it contains passport renewal documents. You want to alert the property manager quickly so it can be redirected before anything goes missing.
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Extension
Your final research paper for Professor Whitfield's course is due in two days. You had the assignment on your calendar for weeks, but you underestimated how long the writing would take and are now behind, with no illness or emergency to explain the delay.
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Equipment Damage
While adjusting the focus on a shared lab microscope during yesterday's session, you heard a crack and noticed the fine-focus knob no longer turns smoothly. You didn't report it before leaving because you weren't sure at first whether it was already like that, but you've since realized it likely happened while you were using it.
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Scholarship
You applied for a merit scholarship and were notified that your application was not selected this cycle. The rejection email mentioned that the committee weighed extracurricular involvement heavily, which you know was the weakest part of your application, but you believe your academic record and personal statement were strong enough to merit a second look.
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Mixup
During your group presentation, you and your presentation partner, Jordan, gave conflicting numbers for the same statistic because you had each pulled data from a different version of the shared document without telling the other. The professor noticed the inconsistency. You want to sort this out with Jordan before your next joint assignment.
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Ghosted
Your two-person project with a classmate is due in five days, but he hasn't responded to any messages, shown up to two scheduled meetings, or contributed anything to the shared document in over two weeks. You've done what you can on your own, but key sections require his part of the research.
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Injury
During a mandatory conditioning drill in your kinesiology lab, you strained your ankle on a mat that you believe was worn through and not providing adequate cushioning. You need to report the injury formally and also ask about completing an alternative assignment while you recover, since the remaining drills this month require full mobility.
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Waitlist
You applied for on-campus housing and were placed on the waitlist, even though you believe your application should have received priority as a transfer student with a documented medical need for ground-floor housing. You want to ask the housing office to review your placement without assuming anyone made a mistake on purpose.
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Reference
Your summer internship with Mr. Osei is ending, and you know your performance was solid but not exceptional; you missed a couple of deadlines early on before improving. You still need a strong recommendation letter for a competitive graduate program and want to ask for one that highlights your growth.
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Timeline
You promised Dr. Patel that you would finish coding the survey data by Friday so she could include it in a conference submission, but you underestimated how long the data cleaning would take and won't be finished until the following Wednesday. You want to tell her before Friday arrives, not after.
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Scheduling Clash
You just discovered that the mandatory review session for Professor Marchetti's final exam is scheduled at the exact same time as your thesis defense, which was set months ago and can't be moved. Both are required, and you only just noticed the overlap while updating your calendar.
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Grant Misuse
While reconciling receipts for your small research travel grant, you realize you used $60 of the grant to cover a meal that wasn't actually part of an approved research activity, which you didn't fully register as a violation until you sat down to do the paperwork. You'd rather disclose it yourself than have it turn up in an audit.
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Deposit
You moved out of your off-campus apartment two weeks ago and just received your security deposit back, but $340 was deducted for "cleaning," even though you have photos showing the apartment was left clean. You want the deduction reversed.
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Broken Promise
At the end of last semester, Professor Sørensen mentioned in passing that a paid research assistant position would likely open in her lab and that she'd keep you in mind. The semester has now started, the position was posted publicly last week, and you haven't heard anything from her directly. You don't want to assume she forgot, but you also don't want to miss the chance if the deadline is close.
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Mentor
Your research mentor, Dr. Feld, has a habit of critiquing your work harshly in front of the rest of the lab during weekly group meetings, which has started affecting your confidence and, you suspect, how your other labmates see you. You want to email him directly to ask if he'd be willing to give critical feedback privately instead, without damaging the working relationship.
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Withdrawal
You've realized that your part-time job hours have increased enough that you can no longer keep up with your assigned role leading the data-analysis portion of your group project, which is due in three weeks. You need to tell your teammates, Diego, Sam, and Mei, before it becomes a bigger problem.
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Noise
Your property manager sent you a notice saying a neighbor filed a noise complaint against your apartment for last Tuesday night. You were actually out of town that entire week, which you can confirm with a flight itinerary, and you want to make sure this is corrected before it affects your record.
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Field Trip
Your ecology class has a mandatory field trip next week to a botanical garden, but you have a severe, documented allergy to a plant species that grows throughout the site. You need to ask your professor whether an alternative arrangement is possible, since missing the trip without one would affect your participation grade.
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Review
You submitted an anonymous peer review of a classmate's project draft, but you misread the rubric and were harsher on one section than you intended once you realized your mistake afterward. Your professor just announced that going forward, reviewer names will be shared with the project owner. You want to flag your specific review before that happens.
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