Writing - The 68-Word Email with the Wrong Reader (short message task)
Priya's A2 Writing task says: 'Your English friend Sam wants to visit you next month. Write an email to Sam. Say which weekend is good for you, say what you will do together, and ask Sam a question about food. Write 25–35 words.'
Priya writes 68 words. She begins 'Dear Mr Sam,' and ends 'Yours sincerely, Priya Sharma'. She answers all three points, then adds a paragraph about her new school and her exams. She uses her dictionary twice to check the spelling of 'restaurant'. She runs out of time before she can read her email back, and she never notices that she has written 'I am very exciting about your visit'.
1. Identify the two problems in Priya's email that will cost her the most marks, and say why they matter more than the errors.
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Problem 1 - she wrote to the wrong reader. The task says Sam is a friend. 'Dear Mr Sam' and 'Yours sincerely' belong to a formal letter to someone you do not know. A2 writing is marked on whether the message works for the reader named in the task, so the greeting and closing are content, not decoration. Correct choices: 'Hi Sam,' … 'See you soon, Priya'.
Problem 2 - length and relevance. 68 words against a 25–35 word limit means roughly half her text is unasked-for. The paragraph about school and exams is not one of the three points, so it earns nothing and consumes the time she needed for checking.
Why these outrank the grammar slip: 'I am very exciting' is a small error that a reader still understands. Register and task achievement affect the whole answer; a single wrong word affects one line. Priya fixed the least important thing (spelling of 'restaurant') and left the two biggest things untouched.
2. Rewrite Priya's email within the word limit so that all three points are present.
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Model answer (29 words):
Hi Sam, The weekend of 12 May is good for me. We can go to the market and then a football match. Do you eat meat? See you, Priya
How the count is built:
- Weekend (5 words) + activity (9 words) + food question (4 words) + greeting and closing (11 words).
- One idea per sentence, one sentence per bullet point in the task.
Procedure: before writing, list the three points as ticks. After writing, tick each one. Then count words. If she is over, cut greetings and adjectives first - never cut a ticked point. At A2 the three content points are worth more than any extra detail she could add.
3. Priya cannot remember the word 'vegetarian'. What should she do?
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Do not reach for the dictionary and do not leave the point out. Ask the question with words she owns:
- 'Do you eat meat?'
- 'Do you like fish or only vegetables?'
Both are correct A2 English, both do the job the task asks for (asking a question about food), and both she can spell without help. A simple word used correctly scores; a difficult word half-remembered either blocks the sentence or produces a word the examiner cannot read.
The general rule for A2 writing: the task rewards saying the thing, not knowing the best word for it. Paraphrase is a skill, not a failure.