B2 Writing Guide: Essay, Article, Email, Review & Report

The Cambridge B2 First Writing paper lasts 1 hour 20 minutes and requires two texts. Part 1 is a compulsory essay. In Part 2, you choose from the available tasks. Each response is normally 140–190 words, so success depends on selecting and developing ideas rather than writing everything you know.

B2 writing is often improved fastest by changing the process. Candidates who start writing immediately tend to lose marks through missing content, weak paragraph purpose or inappropriate register. A short plan prevents all three.

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What does Cambridge assess in B2 Writing?

Your response is judged through four broad areas:

• Content: have you completed the task and included the required information?
• Communicative Achievement: does the text suit the reader, purpose and genre?
• Organisation: are ideas ordered and connected clearly?
• Language: do you use a suitable range of vocabulary and grammar with enough accuracy?

This is why grammar correction alone cannot rescue a weak response. A beautifully accurate email that ignores one required point still has a content problem.

Use the B2 Writing Lab for practice, but keep the original and revised drafts so you can compare decisions rather than only final scores.

How should you plan the compulsory essay?

The essay task gives you a question and two ideas. You must discuss those ideas and add one idea of your own, then give a clear opinion.

Before writing, create a four-line plan:

1. your overall position;
2. body paragraph 1: first given idea + reason/example;
3. body paragraph 2: second given idea + reason/example;
4. body paragraph 3 or integrated section: your own idea + comparison/conclusion.

Do not spend half the introduction paraphrasing the task. Get to the issue quickly. The body paragraphs need development: a claim without a reason is thin; a reason without an example can feel abstract.

A useful paragraph shape is point → explanation → example/consequence. You do not need to follow it mechanically, but it prevents lists of disconnected opinions.

What makes a B2 essay sound appropriately formal?

Formal does not mean unnatural. Avoid conversational fillers such as you know, loads of, kids in a neutral academic essay, but do not replace every simple word with a thesaurus synonym.

Useful neutral structures include:

• One important advantage is that...
• This can lead to...
• Although this may be true in some cases,...
• A further point to consider is...
• For these reasons, I believe...

The goal is clarity and control. Memorising an ornate introduction can make the rest of the essay sound inconsistent.

How do you write a strong article?

An article usually needs a more engaging relationship with the reader than an essay. A title, direct opening question or short personal observation can work well.

But “engaging” does not mean filling the text with rhetorical questions. The task still needs development. Give the reader something concrete: a recommendation, surprising detail, mini-example or practical lesson.

Before writing, identify what the reader should learn, feel or do after reading. That purpose determines the tone.

For example, if the article asks for ways teenagers can exercise more, a useful structure might be:

• hook: why exercise plans fail;
• practical idea 1 with example;
• practical idea 2 with contrast;
• short recommendation to finish.

How should you handle an email or letter?

First decide the relationship: friend, organiser, customer-service contact, teacher or another role. Register follows relationship.

For an informal email, contractions and friendly expressions are natural. For a more formal message, use polite requests and avoid slang.

Do not over-invest in greetings and endings. Most marks are earned in the body by answering the task points clearly.

A reliable workflow is to turn each bullet in the prompt into a mini objective. After drafting, physically tick each one. This simple check prevents an avoidable content penalty.

What makes a good review?

A review is not a plot summary. The reader normally wants evaluation and a recommendation.

Choose two or three criteria relevant to the task: acting, atmosphere, value for money, usability, location, service, difficulty, audience suitability. Organise around those criteria instead of narrating everything that happened.

Use evaluative language precisely:

• particularly effective because...
• the main drawback is...
• better suited to... than...
• worth considering if...

Then end with a recommendation that identifies the right audience. “I recommend it” is weaker than “I would recommend it to readers who enjoy slow-paced mysteries but not to anyone looking for constant action.”

How do you write a report?

A report is practical. The reader wants findings and, often, recommendations. Headings can make the structure clearer.

A useful pattern is:

• Introduction / Purpose — why the report was written;
• Findings — what you observed;
• Problems / Strengths — what matters most;
• Recommendations — specific next actions.

Avoid making recommendations so vague that they cannot be acted on. The school should improve the library is weaker than The school should extend evening opening hours and create a quiet study area near the back of the library.

Use impersonal or semi-formal language when appropriate: It would be advisable to..., Most students reported that..., The main issue appears to be....

How much time should you spend on each task?

You have 80 minutes for two texts. Do not give the first task 55 minutes and then panic through the second.

A practical split per task is:

• 3–5 minutes planning;
• 28–32 minutes writing;
• 3–5 minutes checking.

You can adjust slightly, but always reserve review time. The final check should not be a slow reread of every word. Use separate passes:

1. task pass: did I answer every point?
2. organisation pass: does each paragraph have one clear job?
3. language pass: verb forms, articles, agreement, prepositions, spelling;
4. range pass: can one repeated simple expression be improved naturally?

What vocabulary should you learn for B2 Writing?

Learn functions, not decorative lists. Useful functions include:

• giving an opinion;
• contrasting viewpoints;
• explaining cause and effect;
• making recommendations;
• evaluating advantages and drawbacks;
• giving examples;
• qualifying claims.

For each function, keep several options with different levels of formality. That gives you flexibility across genres.

For example, recommendation language can range from You should try... in an informal message to It would be advisable to... in a report.

How can grammar raise your Writing score?

Use grammar to make meaning more precise. High-value B2 structures include:

• relative clauses to combine information;
• conditionals to discuss consequences;
• modal verbs for recommendations and probability;
• passive forms when the action matters more than the agent;
• contrast structures such as although, despite and whereas;
• participle or infinitive structures you can control accurately.

Use B2 Grammar to fix recurring problems from your drafts. Do not insert complex grammar solely to impress an examiner.

What should you do after receiving feedback?

Feedback has value only if it changes your next performance. Use this routine:

1. choose the two highest-impact comments;
2. rewrite the affected paragraph or section;
3. write a short new paragraph on another topic using the same target;
4. check whether the problem returns in your next full task.

If feedback says “use more linkers”, do not simply add moreover everywhere. Ask whether the real problem is unclear paragraph logic. Sometimes better organisation reduces the need for extra linking words.

Common B2 Writing mistakes

• answering the general topic but missing a specific task point;
• using the same memorised opening for every genre;
• giving opinions without supporting reasons or examples;
• writing a review as a plot summary;
• making report recommendations too vague;
• forcing “advanced” vocabulary that does not fit the collocation;
• spending so long on Task 1 that Task 2 becomes rushed;
• correcting grammar without rewriting weak content.

A practical four-task training sequence

Task 1: write an essay and focus only on content coverage and paragraph logic.

Task 2: write an email/article and focus on register and reader engagement.

Task 3: write a review/report and focus on evaluation or actionable recommendations.

Task 4: choose a fresh task, time the full process and combine all targets.

Keep the four pieces. At the end, compare introductions, paragraph lengths, repeated vocabulary and recurring errors. Your own writing corpus is one of the best sources of personalised revision material.

Final takeaway

Strong B2 Writing comes from reliable decisions: understand the task, choose the right register, give every paragraph a purpose, develop ideas with evidence, and leave time to review. You do not need to sound like a C2 writer. You need to communicate clearly, appropriately and with enough grammatical and lexical range to show stable B2 control.