Flo-Joe for Cambridge English Exams

Cambridge English: Advanced

Check out students' answers to Flo-Joe's CAE Writing tasks with a teacher's feedback

Writing Class: Formal Letter


Task Type: Letter to the Editor

Question
You have recently read the following magazine article:

Is it the end of the printed book as we know it? According to internet experts, the book is dead. What they are predicting is that by 2020 90% of everything we read will be in electronic form. So the form of the book that has been around for 1300 years will become extinct...

Write a letter to the editor of 'Future Net' giving your views (220-260 words).

Makeover: Anna

Read Anna's answer to this question below. Try correcting the piece of writing yourself first: use the marking codes to think about what might be wrong (or what's good) about the piece of work. Then when you're ready, click the green buttons in the text for our feedback.

Dear Sir,

I am writing to you after reading the article about the influence of computers on printed books. I want to share my opinion with you and all readers. Gd

The article says that according to the internet experts, books are dead and will soon become extinct. The predictions for 2020 that you stated are very alarming.

Computers have become very common in recent years. Every month the number of people using /\ internet is increasing. Despite this fact I do not think that printed books will be replaced with electronic ones.

The biggest pro of electronic form of what we read PE is that we can modify (copy, cut, paste, underline etc) the text whenever we want. Pages will never ever grow yellow. Buying electronic books on cd-rom or downloading from /\ internet is (in my country) cheaper (and easier, of course). They can consist of attractive pictures and multimedia presentations. You can easily print /\ selected piece of /\ chapter or find a word you look WT for.

However, after considering all these advantages, I am not even a little bit convinced of using WW using electronic books. Reading from /\ computer monitor tires your eyes very much and soon you can simply bore yourself PE and lose heart. You can only read when there is a computer near, WF never on the bus or train. What is more, a large amount WW of people got WW used to /\ printed forms of books. It is even said that they have souls, can feel and miss when they have not been read for a long time. Although there are more advantages of WW using electronic books, personally I will never give up using and reading printed versions. I partly agree with the writer of the article because one can never fully foresee what /\ is going to be in 20 years. In my opinion, only if {***} prices of computers decrease and more and more people can afford using the internet, only then we can we start thinking PE that the printed form of book will become extinct. But we have nothing to worry about now.

Yours faithfully,

Anna Zagorna

Feedback

This letter is well-organised, Anna. You balance the arguments for and against e-books and the reader is left with a clear impression of your own point of view. This is good to do in the type of task where you are asked to give your opinion.
You have a nice style of writing and you express your feelings well. There are some language errors (mainly missing articles, the odd preposition and verb tense) but this essay also demonstrates a good range of vocabulary. (I have highlighted the phrases I particularly liked!) The register is (mostly) consistently on the formal side, which is appropriate for the task.

Marking Code

/\ Word(s) missing

- Omit word

C Capitalization

Gd Good

O Organisation

P Punctuation

PE Poorly expressed

R Register/Formality

SS Sentence Structure

S Spelling

T Tip (Not wrong but a suggestion)

WF Wrong form

WO Word order

WT Wrong tense

WW Wrong word