Your friend was absent from school on a day when an unfortunate incident took place for which you were blamed. Write a letter to your friend giving details about the incident, your role in it and how the matter was finally resolved.

MODEL ANSWER

14, Lake View Road Kolkata 700029

20 February 2024

Dear Arjun,

You picked an excellent Thursday to have chicken pox. You missed the single most dramatic day of Class Ten, and since three people have probably already told you three different versions, here is mine.

Somebody unscrewed the legs of the chemistry lab stool — the tall one Sir sits on. He sat on it during fifth period and went straight down, taking a beaker of copper sulphate with him. He was not hurt, but he was extremely angry, and by sixth period the whole section had been marched to the Vice Principal.

I was blamed because I was the last person seen in the lab at lunch. Which is true. I had gone back for my geometry box, and Rehan saw me come out, and that was apparently enough. I said I had not touched the stool. Nobody said I was lying, but nobody said anything else either, and I spent two days being looked at.

It was resolved on Monday, and not by me. Two boys from Class Nine confessed — they had done it in the morning break as a prank on each other and had not thought about who would sit on it. The Vice Principal called me back to her office and told me the matter was closed. Sir stopped me outside the staff room afterwards and said, "I should have asked you properly. I am sorry." I did not know what to say to that, so I said nothing, which I regret.

Anyway. Get well. You owe me the Physics notes for two chapters and I intend to collect.

Yours affectionately, Ria

WHAT THIS QUESTION SPECIFICALLY REQUIRES

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

1. DETAILS OF THE INCIDENT — what actually happened
2. YOUR ROLE IN IT — and note the question says you were BLAMED, not that you were guilty. Make clear what you did and did not do.
3. HOW THE MATTER WAS FINALLY RESOLVED — the resolution is compulsory, and it is the part candidates most often omit or rush.

One paragraph each is the safest structure.

FORMAT: this is an INFORMAL letter to a friend — no receiver’s address, no subject line, and the close is "Yours affectionately" or similar, never "Yours faithfully".

TONE is assessed, and a letter to a friend about a school scandal should sound like one: a little wry, a little indignant, personal in its detail. The opening line about chicken pox does more for the expression mark than a paragraph of general complaint. 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.