About GT Writing Part 1: How to create your letter The purpose of Part 1 of the GT test is to check that you can communicate in an appropriate and
effective way, in writing a letter or email. To do this, you must spend a few minutes in the exam
reading the Task and deciding on three points:
The imaginary
recipient of the letter
The correct
styl e to use
The
content of the letter
Let’s explain this:
Recipient The imaginary
recipient (the person who receives and reads it) may be a friend, a stranger,
or a social or professional contact. ‘Imaginary’ means it exists only in imagination; don’t base your
answer on a real person that you know.
Style Depending on this, the letter may need to be in a personal
style , or a formal
style .
Occasionally, a Task may require a semi-formal
style , which we also explain in this book.
Content The task will ask you to write a letter or email in which the
content ideas are a mix of:
Complaining about something
Requesting something
Explaining and/or
apologising about something
Suggesting something
(There will be a combination of these ideas, not just one.)
Depending on what the task instruction is, you then need to decide whether to write your letter or
email in a formal, semi-formal or personal
style , and create the appropriate
content ideas for this
imaginary
recipien t.
It may help to think about it like this:
Remember, you need to decide on the
recipient of the letter, the