Component 1 Section B asks for one transactional piece (a letter, article, speech, report or review). You write it for a stated audience and purpose. The marking rewards clear communication, organisation and accuracy.
Match your register to the reader and plan a shape before you write. These scenarios are our own. Keep within the length the paper indicates (see the 4EA1 specification) and bring a draft to a lesson for feedback.
1Your town council has proposed closing a small public library to save money. Write a letter to the councillor responsible, arguing for or against the closure. Use a formal register throughout and open and close the letter as convention requires.
Organise your reasons into clear paragraphs, and address the reader directly and courteously. Keep within the length the writing section allows: see the 4EA1 specification.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Decide your position and your three strongest reasons before writing. Open by stating who you are and why you are writing. Give one reason per paragraph with evidence or an example.
Answer the obvious counter-argument (cost) instead of ignoring it. Close by naming the specific action you want the councillor to take.
Model opening: Dear Councillor Adeyemi, I am writing as a regular user of the Brook Street library to ask you to reconsider a decision that, however reasonable it may look on a spreadsheet, will fall hardest on the residents least able to absorb it.
Checklist:
- Formal opening and closing that match each other
- A clear position stated early
- One developed reason per paragraph
- You address the cost counter-argument honestly
- You end with a specific request, and accuracy is checked
2Write an article for your school website under the title 'Is being busy the same as being useful?' Take a clear point of view, hook the reader in your opening, develop your argument in organised paragraphs, and keep a register that a reader your own age would trust. Write within the length the writing section allows: check the 4EA1 specification.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Choose a line of argument (for example, that busyness is often mistaken for value) and an angle that will interest students. Open with a specific example or a provocative claim, not a definition.
Develop two or three points and use a subheading or a rhetorical question to steer the reader. Finish with something that lingers.
Model opening: There is a boy in my year who has, by his own count, seven clubs, two responsibilities and no idea what any of them are for. He is, everyone agrees, remarkably busy. Whether he is doing anything useful is a question nobody has thought to ask.
Checklist:
- A title and an engaging, specific opening
- A clear, consistent point of view
- Ideas organised into paragraphs, with a steering device
- Register suits a school-age audience without slang
- A memorable ending, and accuracy is checked
3You have been invited to speak to younger students about one change you would like to see in how the school day is organised. Write the words of your speech.
Use direct address, at least two rhetorical techniques, and a memorable ending, while keeping a register suitable for a school audience. Write within the length the writing section allows: see the 4EA1 specification.
Tried these practice tasks? A teacher can mark your child's attempt and explain the next step in a paid one-hour trial.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Pick one clear change and the audience's own interest in it. Open by involving the listeners directly. Make two or three points, each with a technique attached (a rule of three, a rhetorical question, a short anecdote).
Build towards an ending they will repeat. Mark where you would pause.
Model opening: Good morning. I want to begin with a confession: for most of Year 7, I believed the timetable had been handed down from some higher authority, fixed and unarguable, like the weather. I was wrong, and this morning I want to persuade you to be wrong about it too.
Checklist:
- You open by addressing the audience directly
- At least two rhetorical techniques are used and land clearly
- Ideas are ordered to build towards the ending
- Register fits speaking aloud to younger students
- The ending is memorable, and accuracy is checked
4A recent school event ran into several avoidable problems. Your head of year has asked you to write a formal report recommending how future events could be improved. Use a title and headings and keep an objective tone.
Set out what went wrong factually, and give clear recommendations, each supported by a reason. Write within the length the writing section allows: check the 4EA1 specification.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Plan the report as sections: purpose, what happened, and recommendations. Keep the tone neutral: report problems without blaming individuals. Make each recommendation specific and actionable ('brief the volunteers the week before', not 'be more organised').
Give the reason it would help. Use headings so a busy reader can scan it.
Model opening: Purpose of this report: This report reviews the Year 10 charity fair held on 14 May and sets out four recommendations intended to make future events safer, better organised and better attended.
Checklist:
- A title and clear section headings
- An objective, impersonal tone with no blame
- Facts of what happened stated before recommendations
- Each recommendation is specific and has a reason
- Layout lets a reader scan quickly, and accuracy is checked
5Write a review of a place you know well (a cafe, a park, a shop or a local landmark) for a community website that publishes readers' recommendations. Give a clear overall verdict, specific descriptive detail, and a balanced sense of what is good and what could be better.
Keep the register lively but trustworthy. Write within the length the writing section allows: see the 4EA1 specification.
Show plan, model opening & checklist
Plan: Decide your verdict first. Then choose two or three specific things that justify it. A review lives on concrete detail, not general praise.
Include at least one honest reservation so the reader believes you. Open with a hook that hints at the verdict, and end with a clear recommendation about who the place suits.
Model opening: If you judged the Riverside Cafe by its car park, you would drive straight past it, and you would be making exactly the mistake I made for two years.
Checklist:
- A clear overall verdict the reader can grasp
- Specific, concrete detail rather than vague praise
- At least one honest reservation for balance
- A register that is lively but trustworthy
- A closing recommendation, and accuracy is checked
See the method and an annotated model on the transactional writing page for Pearson Edexcel 4EA1, or the technique in our transactional writing skills guide.