B2 First · Writing · Part 2
Clearly organised reports that end with recommendations.
A report is written for someone who asked for it — a manager, a committee, a college principal — and who will act on it. That gives it the most rigid shape of any task: a neutral formal register, clear sections, and recommendations at the end that follow from what came before.
Use headings. They are conventional in this genre, they make the organisation criterion almost free, and they stop the answer collapsing into an essay. The other requirement is impersonality: a report presents findings rather than feelings, so the opinions in it need to be framed as conclusions drawn from evidence rather than as things you happen to think.
At B2 the situation is usually local and concrete — facilities at a college, a trip the class took, a club someone wants to start — and 140 to 190 words covers an introduction, two short sections and a recommendation. Two headings are plenty at this length.
Yes — they are standard in the genre and they hand you marks on organisation. Two or three are enough for a task this length, plus a short introduction saying what the report covers.
Audience and purpose. An essay argues a position for a general reader; a report presents findings to a named person who requested them and ends in recommendations. The register is more formal and the structure is signposted rather than flowing.
