A report is usually written for a superior (e.g. a teacher) or a peer group (e.g.

members of an
English club). Candidates are expected to give some factual information and make
suggestions or recommendations. A report should be clearly organised and may include
headings.

What a typical report task looks like

. A typical task might be like the one below:

Example task of FCE report writing

With all the different writing tasks in the FCE exam you have to check two things
when you read the information given:
1. What do you have to include in your report?
2. Who is going to read it?
Read the task carefully and underline the key information to find the answers to the
two questions above.

Always read the task carefully and underline the key information.

So, what do you have to include? 

 In almost every writing task in the FCE exam you will find that there are three
main points. In this example, you have to include the best (1) and the worst
(2) aspects of the club as well as your suggestions for new facilities (3).
 Making a suggestion/recommendation is the one piece of content that we
can see in every single report because, after all, reports are usually written to
 make a suggestion, aren’t they? To sum up, while each task talks about a
different topic there are clear similarities for you to benefit from, especially
making a suggestion.
 The other question was about the reader of your report. As you can see above,
the manager of the club is going to be the person you are going to write to.
You might ask yourself why this bit of information is important. The short answer is:
register. When we speak or write in English there are different levels of politeness
and/or formality and in the FCE writing exam you have to be careful to choose an
appropriate tone depending on your target reader.
Because the manager of the club has authority we should be polite and use formal to
semi-formal language. This means you shouldn’t use contractions like ‘I’m’, but
instead write ‘I am’ nor colloquial expressions like ‘Cheers!’, but rather ‘Thank you’.
This also includes phrasal verbs so try to avoid those too.

How to organise your report

OK, now that we know what to include and how formal/polite we have to be we can
start organising our report. Luckily, reports can always be organised in a similar way
because most tasks ask you to do the same (just with a different topic).

If you remember, there are three main points we have to include in our report:
1. The good aspects of the club
2. The bad aspects of the club
3. Your suggestions for new facilities
It probably makes sense to give each of these main topic points an extra paragraph
so we’ve already got three. Let’s add a title and an introduction to this so we get
to four main sections, which work in almost every single report:
1. Title and introduction
2. First topic point (The good aspects of the club)
3. Second topic point (The bad aspects of the club)
4. Your suggestions/recommendations (Your suggestions for new facilities)
In a report we also give each section a heading 

Plan before you start writing

.
Always make a plan before you start writing. Just make a list with the different
paragraphs like the one above and add just a few notes to each section.
This way, you know the structure of your text, what you want to include and you will
feel more relaxed once you begin.

The different parts of a report

Using our example task from above we are now going to go through each part of an
FCE report so you know exactly what is expected and what mistakes you need to
avoid. Please note that these are general guidelines for report writing and you will
have to adjust a little bit from task to task,

Introduction

A report is always based on facts (even though you will normally have to invent those
‘facts’) In your introduction, therefore, you should clearly state why you are writing
the report and what is going to be included. Also, try not to repeat the words as you
find them in the task, but instead paraphrase and use your own words. You can also
say where you got the information from, but this point is optional.
Useful phrases to start your report with include:
1. The purpose/aim of this report is to …
2. The report is intended to show/discuss/suggest/outline …
3. In this report I will …
Keeping all of this in mind, the introduction to our example task could look like this:

Introduction

The purpose of this report is to outline the best and worst parts of our club, which I
gathered speaking to other members, as well as to recommend improvements to the
facilities.
And that’s it. Focus on the task and state very clearly what your report intends to do…
nice and easy.

Topic paragraphs

The topic paragraphs are where you give most of the information of your report.
Again, it shouldn’t sound like a great story, but be factual and clear. In the example
we have to describe the best and worst aspects of the leisure club. From this
information we will later make our recommendations so we want to tie everything
together nicely.
Of course, there are always things to be careful with:
1. Only write about things related to the task.
2. Support your points with reasons and examples.
3. Don’t write from your personal perspective, but rather from the group’s point
of view.
4. Use some language to generalise your arguments:
o In general, …
o Generally speaking, …
o Most (members) seem to …
o It appears that …
o According to …
o Passive voice (be + past participle)
OK, let’s see what Teacher Phill came up with:

The best aspects of the club

Most members seem to enjoy the swimming pool with it’s daily water exercise classes
and the opportunity to swim in 50-metre lanes. It also appears that offering a child
care programme is appreciated by the majority of our members since many of them
have families, but still would like to use the facilities of the club.

The worst aspects of the club

According to most of the members I have spoken to, the café does not meet their
expectations with below-average food and slow service. Another problem is the state
of the gymnasium which, in general, is avoided by many because of broken equipment
and a lack of staff during peak times.
Here there are included formal language and expressions to generalise as well as
some passive structures (is appreciated, is avoided), which helps to make the report
sound more formal and also moves it away from my personal perspective. It is
focused only on the task and expanded a little bit on each point that is made.

Your suggestion/recommendation

Last but not least, you need to finish off our report with your suggestions to improve
the clubs facilities. You should always base your recommendations on the things
you wrote in the previous paragraphs to make sure that your report as a whole
makes sense.
You can do this by using some specific language:
1. Based on the findings of this report I recommend/suggest +ing
2. I (would) recommend/suggest that …
3. The following (improvements) are recommended: …
4. The best ideas/solutions seem to be …
5. It would be (highly) advisable to …
6. If it is decided to follow my recommendations, …
One last time, check out my idea for a nice final paragraph:

Suggestions to improve the club’s facilities

Based on the findings of this report the best solutions seem to be to improve the
quality of the menu and the service at the café as well as the maintenance schedule
and number of staff at the gymnasium. If it is decided to follow my recommendations,
I am sure that the experience for our members can be improved even more.
As you can see, this suggestions are well connected to the two topic paragraphs
(problems with the café and the gym). I also used specific language (Based on the
findings …, If it is decided to follow my recommendations, …) and some passive voice
to keep the report formal until the end.
If you take this advice and put all the parts together, your report will be well

connected with lots of useful language and the right tone for a report. . 
Marking FCE writing tasks is like a science and for a lot of students it feels as if there
is this big mystery and nobody really knows how it works. Actually, there are very
clear rules that the examiners have to follow and the criteria are publicly available.

How your writing is marked

There are four marking scales in the writing exam. Each of these scales
looks at specific aspects of your writing. Generally speaking the four parts
are:
1. Content – answering the task, supporting your ideas
2. Communicative achievement – register, tone, clear ideas, conventions of
the specific task type
3. Organisation – structure of the text, logical order, connected ideas
4. Language – grammar and vocabulary
Each scale is scored out of 5 so you can get a maximum of 20 marks where
3/5 basically means that you have passed this part of your writing.
The four marking scales
Now, of course, it is time to have a look at the four different marking scales in a
little bit more detail. I’m going to keep it as simple as possible with examples and
explanations so you know what to do.

1. Content

The very first thing an examiner is going to look at is the Content scale. Here
they check if you actually answered the task, if you answered it completely and if
the reader of the text is fully informed.

So, what exactly does that mean? To find out let’s have a look at an example task
from an FCE practice exam.

Source:
Cambridge English First – Handbook for teachers
Looking at the example above there are four different things that we need to
include in our writing if we want to score high marks on the Content marking
scale.

First of all, there is a question for you to answer and, secondly, there are three
topic points that you have to include in this essay. (Yes, your own idea means
that you have to write something. Don’t forget this one.) It is also very important
that you support your ideas with reasons and examples, which is one thing that
separates the average candidates from the great ones. If you want to score high
marks, you have to take your writing to a higher level.

To sum this up, always answer all the things that are asked in the task, but
don’t stop there. Use reasons and examples to support your ideas to get
higher marks and not ‘just pass’.

2. Communicative Achievement

The next marking scale is an interesting one because it is easy to get good marks
here, but at the same time, make mistakes just as easily.

To get high marks in Communicative Achievement you firstly need to show that
you understand who is going to read your text.. Let’s look at two more examples.
Who is going to read your text? You got it, your English teacher is the one.

Now the question is what that means for your writing task? Ask yourself what
kind of language and tone you would use if you wrote something for your
English college magazine or the manager of a leisure centre. Would it be formal
or informal? Would you use a lot of slang words and colloquial expressions?

In our first example, we would try to keep it light and rather informal because
students are going to be the ones reading it. In the report, on the other hand, we
would choose more formal language and stay a little bit more serious than, let’s
say, in a review of your favourite film. Make sure that this becomes clear in your
choice of grammar and vocabulary as well as some other stylistic features like
contractions (I’m vs I am) etc.

Another important point for you to consider is what a report looks like
compared to a review? Do you need a title? Subheadings? An introduction
and/or conclusion? A greeting and salutation? Think about the specific features
of each type of writing and make sure that the text you write looks that way.

Lastly, the Communicative Achievement scale also assesses your ability to clearly
express your ideas and to hold the readers attention. You should ask yourself if
you would enjoy reading your text and if your arguments or ideas are clearly
communicated.

. Communicative Achievement looks at your ability to use an appropriate

style and tone, the correct features for each specific task like title,
subheadings, etc. as well as how well you express your ideas and hold the
readers attention

3. Organisation

Organisation, similar to Communicative Achievement, is an area where you can

score marks very easily, but a lot of students don’t reach their full potential. We
can look at two major problems that students face to explain where candidates
lose (or don’t get more) marks.

To begin with, your writing tasks should always be organised in paragraphs.

Making paragraphs is an easy task, but there is a little bit more to it than you
might think at the beginning.

Looking back at our example from the beginning, how many paragraphs do you
think we should use in the essay?
Tough question, I know. When we think about an essay, there should always be
an introduction and a conclusion so two paragraphs are already locked in. The
task above requires you to write about three topic points: transport, rivers and
seas, and your own idea. That’s an additional three paragraphs and a total of
five. Do this for every task before you start slamming words onto paper. It will
save you a lot of headaches and self-hate.

So, paragraphs are great, but you have to put them in logical order (which
depends on the task you’re working on) and have one main idea per paragraph.
Don’t try to pack five different things in one. Make a plan before you start writing
and avoid these unnecessary mistake.

Secondly, the examiner looks at your ability to connect your ideas using linking
words and other methods. Once again, these words and methods can be similar
for some task types but different for others.

Organisation checks your ability to bring a logical order to your writing.

Use paragraphs for your main ideas and connect everything with linking
words and other useful language. Make a plan and get organised before
you start writing, save yourself some time and avoid getting stressed out.

4. Language

Language is probably the one marking scale that is quite straight forward. You
are assessed on your use of grammar and vocabulary, which includes if you
make a lot of errors as well as how wide your range of grammar and
vocabulary is.
For example, if you are writing about travelling you should show a wide range of
vocabulary specific to this topic. For a task about the environment the
vocabulary changes. I guess that makes sense. The more pointed towards the
task your words and expressions are, the better it is for your marks.

In the grammar department it is not so much about the task, but rather about
you trying to use structures that are outside of your comfort zone or not. You
don’t have to be perfect at this level of English so the FCE examiners recognise
even attempts at more complex grammar.

So, the next time you practise writing for the exam challenge yourself to use at least
three grammatical structures that you find difficult, such as conditionals, the passive
voice or reporting verbs.