Creative and Functional Writing: Letter, Essay, Précis, Report, Translation
What the writing paper tests
This section tests format, relevance, organisation and language control. Each task has a different shape: letter, essay, précis, report or translation. Marks are lost quickly when the format is missing or the word limit is ignored.
Core rules
- Formal letter: sender address, date, receiver address, subject, salutation, body, closing and signature. Keep the subject short and specific.
- Essay: introduction, two or three body paragraphs, conclusion. One idea per paragraph.
- Précis: reduce to about one-third, keep only main ideas, use own words, add no opinion.
- Report: headline, byline, lead sentence, factual details, conclusion.
- Translation: translate meaning, not word order; keep names, numbers and technical terms consistent.
Worked example
Précis task: a paragraph says a village well dried up, women walked farther, and the panchayat repaired a tank. Weak précis: “The well dried up and women suffered.” Better: “A failed well forced longer water journeys until the panchayat restored a tank.” Reasoning: the better version keeps cause, effect and solution in one sentence.
Traps
- Omitting the subject line in a formal letter.
- Writing a narrative when the essay asks for argument.
- Adding personal opinion to a précis.
- Mixing headline and body in a report.
- Translating idioms literally.