C1 Advanced · 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 C1 the brief is more demanding and the answer runs to 220 to 260 words: you are typically reporting on something with competing considerations, and the recommendations have to acknowledge the trade-off rather than pretend it away. The register is fully formal, and a report that reads as though one option was obvious from the start has not done the evaluative work the task is asking for.
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.
