C1 Advanced · Writing · Part 2
Emails and letters pitched at the right tone for the reader.
Everything here follows from one question: who is reading it. The task always tells you — a friend, a manager, an organisation you have never dealt with — and the register, the greeting, the sign-off and the level of directness all follow from that answer. Getting the reader right is most of communicative achievement on this task.
The other half is completeness. These tasks usually bury two or three things you must do — thank, explain, request, apologise, suggest — inside a short prompt. Underline them before you start. A fluent, well-written email that answered two of the three required points scores badly on content, and content is the criterion that costs candidates most.
At C1 the reader is more often institutional and the purpose more demanding: complaining effectively, declining without offending, pressing a case to someone with the power to refuse it. 220 to 260 words, and the register is doing real work — the difference between a firm complaint and a rude one is exactly what communicative achievement is measuring here.
Match the reader named in the task. A friend takes contractions and informal phrasing; an organisation takes full forms, a formal greeting and no idiom. Consistency matters as much as the level itself — drifting between the two is penalised.
No. You are marked on the body of the text, and layout furniture is not required. Spend the words on the content points instead.
