Cambridge Writing: The Essay & the Choice

The big picture

• Cambridge Writing (2 parts)
  • Part 1: Essay — Compulsory · discuss two points + your own
  • Part 2: Choice — Email/letter, report, review or proposal
  • Match the genre — Register & layout fit the task type
  • Answer the prompt fully — Cover every required point

Part 1 — the compulsory essay

Part 1 is always an essay responding to a prompt with two given points plus one of your own idea. You discuss both given points and add a third, reaching a clear conclusion. It's semi-formal and needs a clear intro–body–conclusion structure.

Part 2 — choose your genre

In Part 2 you choose one task from options like an email/letter, report, review, or proposal. Each has its own conventions — a review persuades and evaluates, a report informs with headings, an email matches its reader — so write in the right genre and register.

Match register to the task

Register matters: formal for a report or a letter to an authority, more relaxed for an email to a friend. Getting the tone and layout right is part of the mark — a formal report written like a casual email loses points even if the English is good.

Cover every point, then check

Both parts are assessed on content (all points covered), communicative achievement (right register), organisation, and language. Address every required point, organise with paragraphs and linkers, and leave time to check grammar and spelling.

Test yourself before you move on

Re-reading a note feels like learning and produces almost none. The retrieval below is what actually builds the memory, so cover the map above and answer these from memory — out loud or written down, not in your head, because "I know this" is the feeling that fails under exam pressure.

1. Without looking: what is Part 1: Essay, and how does it connect to Cambridge Writing (2 parts)?
2. Without looking: what is Part 2: Choice, and how does it connect to Cambridge Writing (2 parts)?
3. Without looking: what is Match the genre, and how does it connect to Cambridge Writing (2 parts)?
4. Without looking: what is Answer the prompt fully, and how does it connect to Cambridge Writing (2 parts)?

Anything you could not produce is the part of this note you have not learned yet — regardless of how familiar it felt while reading. Re-read only that node, then re-test the whole set. Testing the whole set matters: recalling one idea in isolation is easier than recalling it among 4 competing ones, which is the situation the exam actually puts you in.

When to come back to this note

Spacing is not a scheduling detail, it is the mechanism. Meeting this material again just as it starts to fade forces the effortful retrieval that consolidates it, which is why a note reviewed four times across three weeks outlasts the same note read four times in one evening. The built-in scheduler resurfaces these questions at widening intervals for exactly that reason — the prompt arriving when you feel you have half-forgotten is the system working, not failing.

A practical rhythm for Cambridge Writing (2 parts): today, again tomorrow, then after three days, then after a week. If you fail a review, shorten the next interval rather than re-reading the note end to end — the failure identifies the gap precisely, and re-reading everything wastes the diagnosis.