Produzione scritta: due testi, due compiti diversi
What the paper asks
You normally write two texts: a functional letter or email (to a friend, a landlord, an office, a newspaper) and a longer text - narrative, descriptive or argumentative - often linked to a short input. You are assessed on communicative effectiveness, register, range of structures and lexis, formal accuracy and cohesion. Content that answers the task matters more than ambitious grammar that derails the message.
The traps
The most expensive mistake is register: a letter to an institution needs Lei, Gentile, Distinti saluti; a letter to a friend needs tu, Ciao, A presto. Mixing them costs marks across the whole piece. Second trap: ignoring the bullet points in the prompt, so that one required piece of information is missing. Third: copying chunks of the prompt instead of reformulating. Fourth: wildly exceeding or falling short of the required length - usually a sign of poor planning rather than richness.
Working method
Spend five minutes planning: decide the addressee, the register, the three or four points to cover and the order. Write an opening that states the purpose, a body of one paragraph per point, and a closing with a formula and a signature. Then use the last five minutes to hunt for the errors you personally make - usually articles, agreements and prepositions - rather than to add new sentences.
Worked example
Prompt: write to the owner of a flat you rented, explaining a problem and asking for a solution. Opening: «Gentile Signora Rossi, Le scrivo per segnalarLe un problema sorto durante il mio soggiorno nel Suo appartamento.» Body: what happened, when, what you already tried. Closing: «La ringrazio per la disponibilità e resto in attesa di un Suo riscontro. Cordiali saluti, …». Notice the cohesive chain - Le scrivo per…, inoltre, di conseguenza, la ringrazio - and that every verb of the request is in the conditional or in a polite present. Rule of thumb: if you can read your text aloud and hear the voice of the person it is addressed to, the register is right.