You were a part of an organizing committee for an inter-school event that was very successful. You and the other committee members were congratulated and praised at the school assembly by the Principal. Write a letter to your grandmother telling her about the event and your feelings at being recognized and praised in front of the school.

MODEL ANSWER

14, Lake View Road Kolkata 700029

10 March 2017

Dear Thamma,

I have news, and I have been saving it for a letter rather than a telephone call because I wanted to tell it properly.

You know I was put on the committee for the inter-school science exhibition. It was held last Saturday. Eleven schools came, there were forty-two exhibits, and about six hundred visitors passed through the hall between ten and four.

My own job was the registration desk and the timetable, which sounds dull and was in fact the reason I did not sleep properly for a week. Every school had to be received, given its table, and slotted for judging at a time that did not clash with anything. Two schools arrived an hour late and one judge did not arrive at all, so a good deal of the afternoon was spent rearranging things quietly at the back while the exhibition went on at the front. Nothing visible went wrong. That was the whole achievement.

On Monday the Principal called the six of us onto the stage at assembly and spoke about the exhibition for some minutes, and then read out our names.

I am not sure I can describe what that was like. I had expected to feel proud, and I did, but what I mostly felt was a sort of disbelief — that the thing I had been doing at the back, invisibly, had been seen at all. My ears were burning. Anjali next to me was shaking. And I thought, absurdly, of you, and of you saying last summer that work nobody notices is still work.

It was noticed.

Baba took photographs of the assembly from the visitors’ row and I am sending two of them with this letter.

Do come in April. There is a great deal more to tell and I would rather tell it sitting down.

With much love, Ria

WHAT THIS QUESTION SPECIFICALLY REQUIRES

TWO tasks, and the second is the one that carries the letter:

1. TELL HER ABOUT THE EVENT
2. YOUR FEELINGS at being recognised and praised IN FRONT OF THE SCHOOL

Give the feelings a full section of their own. A letter that describes the exhibition for 200 words and adds "I felt very proud" has answered half the question.

FORMAT: an INFORMAL letter — no receiver’s address, no subject line, close with "With much love" or "Yours affectionately".

THE FEELINGS SHOULD BE PARTICULAR. "I felt proud and happy" is what most candidates write. Burning ears, a friend shaking, and disbelief that invisible work had been seen are the same emotion rendered specifically — and specificity is what the expression mark rewards.

Writing to a GRANDMOTHER also licenses a personal touch: recalling something she once said ties the letter to its reader and lifts the tone mark. FORMAT AND MARKS DIVISION: see the Formal Letter and Informal Letter references in the Writing Formats & Marking (Reference) chapter.

USE THIS AS A MODEL, NOT AS AN ANSWER TO MEMORISE. The question asks for an ORIGINAL composition, and every year examiners identify scripts reproduced from guide books; a memorised answer can be penalised for plagiarism and will in any case read as borrowed. Study this piece for its STRUCTURE — how it opens, how the paragraphs are ordered, where the required tasks are answered, how it ends — and then write your own, about your own school, your own family, your own town. Your own specific detail is worth more marks than anyone else’s polished sentence.