The traffic outside your school is very heavy and chaotic. Write a letter to the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) pointing out the danger of such heavy and chaotic traffic in a school zone. Suggest possible solutions for the problem.

MODEL ANSWER

St. Stephen’s School Agra 282002

26 February 2018

The Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Hariparvat Agra 282002

Subject: Dangerous traffic conditions outside St. Stephen’s School

Sir,

I write on behalf of the students of St. Stephen’s School to draw your attention to the heavy and chaotic traffic outside our school gate, which has become a serious danger to the children.

The situation is at its worst between 7:30 and 8:00 in the morning and between 1:30 and 2:00 in the afternoon. Parents’ cars are parked in double rows along both sides of the road, leaving a single lane for two-way traffic. School buses cannot draw up at the kerb and are forced to let children down in the middle of the road. There is no zebra crossing and no speed limit sign within two hundred metres of the gate, and vehicles pass at speed even while children are crossing. In January a boy of Class VI was knocked down by a scooter at this spot; he escaped with a fractured arm, and we may not be so fortunate next time.

May I respectfully suggest the following measures:

1. A traffic constable may be deputed outside the gate during the two peak half-hours on school days.
2. A zebra crossing may be marked at the gate and SCHOOL ZONE and SPEED LIMIT signboards installed on both approaches.
3. Speed breakers may be laid a hundred metres on either side of the school.
4. A no-parking zone may be enforced along the school frontage, with a designated drop-off point a short distance away.

The school is willing to help by staggering its dispersal times and by writing to parents about the drop-off arrangement.

I shall be grateful if the matter receives your early attention.

Thanking you,

Yours faithfully, Raman Kumar (Head Boy, St. Stephen’s School, Agra)

WHAT THIS QUESTION SPECIFICALLY REQUIRES

TWO tasks, and the second is compulsory:

1. POINT OUT THE DANGER — specifically, in a SCHOOL ZONE
2. SUGGEST POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

A letter that only complains cannot earn full content marks.

THE WORD DANGER governs the first half. General grumbling about congestion misses the question; the letter must show why this traffic THREATENS CHILDREN — buses unable to reach the kerb, no crossing, no speed limit, an actual accident. One concrete incident is worth three paragraphs of concern.

MAKE THE SOLUTIONS PRACTICAL AND VARIED. Notice that the four suggested here are different in KIND — personnel, signage, engineering, enforcement. Four versions of "post a policeman" would earn one mark, not four.

Offering what the school itself will do is a strong closing move: it turns a demand into a partnership, which is what makes an official likely to act. 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.