Suggested phrases to the writing part

Seite 1

SUGGESTED ANSWERS

Emails and letters

-Salutation:

Dear Sir/ Madam/ Dear Sir or Madam

Dear Mr/ Ms + family name

Dear + given name

Hi + given name

-Opening line:

Thank you for…

It was so nice to hear from you.

I am writing to you to/ about/ because…

How are you?

-Starting paragraphs:

First of all, I have/ had some questions about/ In answer to your questions about…

There were also a few things I wondered about…/ Now I’d like to answer what you asked

me about…/ You also asked me about...

-Indirect questions:

Could you (possibly) tell me…?

I also wanted some information about…

I (really) need to know…

-Closing line:

(I’m) looking forward to hearing from you (soon)/ seeing you soon.

Thanks in advance.

Thanks again.

If you need any further information/ If you have any further questions, please do not

hesitate to contact me./ If there’s anything else you want to know, drop me a line anytime.

-Closing salutation:

Yours

Best regards

All the best

Love

See you

(textspeak abbreviations like CU are not acceptable in FCE, for some reason)

Seite 2

Reports

-Opening the introduction:

The purpose of this report is to…

I have written this report to…

This report has been written in order to…

-Explaining what you did in order to write the report:

In order to prepare this report…

To do so, I…

The data in this report was obtained by…

In order to help make this decision,…

… asked/ discussed/ gave out a questionnaire/ surveyed…

-Giving the most important information:

The main/ most important/ biggest/ most significant…

-Contrasting:

However,…

In contrast,…

Although…,…

-Reporting what people said:

A few/ Some/ Many/ Most/ The majority of/ Almost all the people said/ reported/

complained/ recommended/ believed/ thought…

… are concerned/ worried/ surprised…

-Giving more information:

In addition…/ …also…

The second most important/ biggest/ most significant…

Another/ An additional/ A further…

-Summarizing:

Although reactions were mixed, on the whole…

On balance,…

It can be seen from the data/ reactions/ information above that…

Looking at all the things people said, on the whole…

Taking everyone’s comments into consideration,…

Despite the… above, in general it is clear that…

Overall,...

-Concluding:

For this reason,…

Due to this,…

Therefore,…

-Recommendations:

I (strongly) recommend/ my recommendation is to/ it is recommended that…

Seite 3

Stories

-Near the beginning:

At first…

First of all…

One day/ morning/ evening/ night…

I decided…

At that time…

When/ While I was…

During lunch/ work/ a lecture…

-Near the middle:

At the end of the first day/ hour…

In the first couple of minutes/ days/ hours…

Unfortunately,…

To my amazement,…

By the middle of the…

I seemed to be running out of time…

However, my plans changed completely when…

Suddenly…/ Completely out of the blue,…

Then/ Next/ (Just/ Straight) after that/ (A moment/ A little while) later…

-Near the end:

Eventually…

In the end…

At the end (of)…

Looking back now I’m (so) glad that I…/ I (so) happy I didn’t…/ I (really) regret…

After it was all over…

It wasn’t (at all/ quite) what I had expected but…

On the last day,…

Just in time,…

Luckily,…/ To our relief,…

It was then that (I realised)…