Your favourite aunt/uncle has asked you what you would like as a gift for your birthday. What gift would you choose (specify) and why would you choose this? Write a letter to your aunt/uncle thanking her/him for the kind thought and telling her/him about the gift of your choice.

MODEL ANSWER

14, Lake View Road Kolkata 700029

25 April 2022

Dear Meena Mashi,

Thank you for your letter, and for remembering — you are the only person who asks what I want instead of guessing, and after the year of the orange sweater I think we are all grateful for that.

I have thought about it properly, and what I would like is a second-hand harmonium.

I know this is an odd request, so let me explain. I have been learning Rabindrasangeet from Boudi upstairs since last July, and for nine months I have been practising on her instrument for half an hour on Sundays, which is the only time it is free. It is not enough. I can hold the tunes now but my fingering is hopeless, and the only cure for that is an instrument I can sit at every day.

I have found out what is involved. A reconditioned three-and-a-half octave instrument from the shop on Rashbehari Avenue costs between four and six thousand rupees, and the man there will let you try them first. I am not asking for a new one — the old ones are better, apparently, and Boudi has offered to come and choose it with us.

Why this and not something else: because everything else I might ask for I would be finished with by December, and this is the one thing I want that I am fairly sure I will still be using at forty.

Please do not feel obliged. A book would make me happy too, and you know which ones.

Come for Poila Boishakh if you can. Ma is already planning the menu.

With much love, Ananya

WHAT THIS QUESTION SPECIFICALLY REQUIRES

THREE tasks, and content marks are counted against all three:

1. THANK her or him for the kind thought
2. SPECIFY the gift — the question says "specify", so a vague answer such as "something nice" earns nothing. Name the thing precisely.
3. explain WHY you would choose it

The third should be the longest section; it is where the letter becomes personal and where the content marks concentrate.

FORMAT: an INFORMAL letter — no receiver’s address, no subject line, close with "With much love" or "Yours affectionately", never "Yours faithfully".

PRACTICAL DETAIL is what distinguishes a strong answer. Knowing the price, where it can be bought and who would help choose it makes the request sound real. Adding a graceful line releasing the aunt from obligation is the kind of courtesy the tone mark rewards. 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.