Too Much, Too Familiar
A candidate is doing the longer Writing task: an email of 100–120 words to Mrs Baker, whose family the candidate will stay with for two weeks. The task gives three content points: introduce yourself (name, age, where you are from), ask how to get from the airport to her house, and ask what to bring. The candidate's draft is 168 words. It opens 'Dear Mrs Baker, Hi! I'm Ana and I'm 17 and I'm from Valencia.' It covers all three points, then adds: 'Can you pick me up at the airport? My plane lands at 23.40.' It also says 'I don't eat meat' and asks about the weather in July. The requests are written as 'I want you to tell me the bus' and 'I want to know what I bring'. The candidate's teacher says only 'too long, too informal', and the candidate does not know what to cut first.
1. Rank the problems in this draft by how much they cost in the exam, and say what you would fix first.
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Rank by effect on the marks: task achievement, then organisation, then language.
- Over length (168 against a 100–120 range). This is the biggest risk. The examiner sees padding, the extra content earns nothing, and the number of errors rises with every sentence. Cut first; about 110 words is a safer target than 'as much as possible'.
- Register mix. 'Dear Mrs Baker, Hi!' clashes: a formal opening followed by a chatty greeting. Choose one. For a host family you have never met, 'Dear Mrs Baker,' followed by 'I hope you are well.' is safe and still warm.
- Requests phrased as demands. 'I want you to tell me the bus' sounds like an instruction to an employee. B1 rewards polite indirect questions: 'Could you tell me which bus I should take?'
- Unrequested additions. The airport pick-up, the vegetarian note and the weather question are all extra. The first is the real problem because it is a new request that goes beyond the task and adds words.
Fix order: cut to length, unify the register, rewrite the two requests politely.
2. Rewrite the two request sentences and show exactly which words you would cut to reach 120.
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Rewrites:
- 'I want you to tell me the bus' becomes 'Could you tell me which bus I should take from the airport?'
- 'I want to know what I bring' becomes 'Could you also tell me what I should bring with me?'
Both use the same pattern: Could you tell me + question word + subject + verb, with no inversion after 'could you tell me'. 'I want to know' is not wrong grammar, but it is blunt; the indirect form is the B1 target.
Cuts to reach 120:
- Delete the weather question, about 10 words, because it is not a task point.
- Delete the airport pick-up request, about 14 words, because it is a separate request and creates an obligation the task never asked for.
- Compress the introduction: 'I'm Ana, I'm 17 and I come from Valencia' replaces the three-part 'and … and …' chain and saves about 5 words.
- Keep 'I don't eat meat' but attach it to a task point. Under 'what to bring' you can write 'I don't eat meat, so please don't plan anything special for me.' That is about five extra words rather than a separate paragraph.
Do not cut the three required points. Those are where the marks are.
3. Would you keep the information that the candidate does not eat meat? Argue both ways and give a decision.
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For keeping it: it is genuinely useful to a host family, it shows the candidate can communicate a practical need, and it offers a chance to use simple, accurate language. If the third task point is 'what to bring', a short mention fits naturally, because the family needs to know before they shop.
For cutting it: it is not one of the three content points, the email is already over length, and every extra sentence adds risk of error without adding task marks. Under exam conditions, unrewarded content is a cost.
Decision: keep one short sentence, not a paragraph, and only if the draft is at or under about 110 words without it. Write it as part of the answer to 'what to bring' rather than as a new topic. If the draft is already at 120, cut it.
The wider principle: extra content is worth including only when it is short, relevant and controlled. Length is not a virtue here; the mark scheme rewards covering the points clearly inside the required range.