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

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Writing Class: Formal Letter

Task Type: Letter to the Editor

Question
You are reading your favourite newspaper and you come across a letter which attacks the education system in your country (or a country that you know well).

... What a pity our school system is so out-of- date. I would suggest that some major educational reforms are needed in this new century!

Yours sincerely
Prof Collins To give YOUR view contact the editor by writing to...

Write a letter to the editor of the newspaper giving your response to Prof. Collins' letter (220-260 words)

Makeover: Augusto

Read Augusto'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 Prof Collins,

I am writing to express my agreement with the criticisms that you spread WW in the news concerning our school system's hindrance. PE

As you suitably mentioned, in the new century, named for WW researchers as the information era, WW we'd better have our children well prepared to face the future job market, otherwise the globalized competitors will knock them down. PE

Nevertheless, I have already realized that, as it is an ordinary concern in the population's opinion, drawing the politics WF attention to solve this problem might be an excellent short cut to raise funds to acquire some schools primary necessities. PE

Regarding the reforms that you've suggested, I would say that not only the schools are WO poorly prepared but our teachers do not have the necessary tact to interact with the students. Maybe a recycling compulsory course WW should WW be a good way to take them out WW from their desktop. It should WW probably cost less than replacing the whole team and indemnify all of them. PE

I would be grateful if you could look into my suggestion. In case of further comments, I am available for a conversation. PE

I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully WW

Augusto Yassuo Teoi

Feedback

Augusto, this is a good attempt at quite a difficult task. The layout of your letter and the opening and closing phrases are good. Your style of writing is very fluent, although on occasions your phraseology is a bit awkward (e.g. 'recyling compulsory course' and 'should' substituted for 'would').
The reader would have a basic understanding of your views but at approximately 190 words you have plenty of scope to develop your arguments further. The word limit in the exam is about 260 at CAE level so you should aim to get as close to the target as you can.

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

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