On the way home from a day trip you left a bag on the bus. The bus company has a lost property office which accepts messages by email. Write an email to the...

Exercise 5 is marked twice on the same piece of writing: up to 6 marks for content and up to 9 for language, making 15 in all. The two marks are independent, so accurate English on an incomplete answer still loses content marks, and a full answer written in poor English still loses language marks. Write 120 to 160 words.

How the 6 content marks are earned

The three bullets are the content. Top band means all three are covered fully and developed with relevant detail, so that the reader is fully informed. Cover two well and mention the third briefly and the mark falls to around 3; deal with only one and it falls to about 2. For this task each bullet needs the following.

1. Describe the bag and say what was inside it. Development means enough for a stranger in a store room to pick it out: colour, size, material, a strap, a badge, a name tag, any mark or repair. Then list the contents, and name at least one item that is identifiable, such as a book with a name in it or a set of keys with a particular fob.
2. Say when and where you were travelling. Give the date, the route or service number, the time of the journey and where you boarded and left. Adding the deck or the seat is genuine development, because it tells the office where to look.
3. Explain what you would like the office to do next. Make one clear request: hold the bag, confirm by email whether it has been found, or say how and when it can be collected. A request the reader can act on scores; a general complaint about the bus service does not.

How the 9 language marks are earned

Four things are judged together. Range: vocabulary that is precise rather than repeated, and a mixture of simple and complex sentences, including relative clauses and time clauses. Accuracy: control of tenses, especially the past simple for the journey and a conditional or modal for the request; errors in ambitious language are tolerated while meaning stays clear. Register: polite and reasonably formal throughout, since the reader is a stranger at an office. Organisation: an appropriate opening and closing, one paragraph for each bullet, and linking words that carry the reader forward.

A model response

Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing because I left a bag on one of your buses last Saturday and I would be grateful for your help.

The bag is a dark green rucksack, medium sized, made of canvas with brown leather straps. There is a small tear near the left pocket and a blue badge sewn onto the front. Inside there were a grey jumper, a library book with my name written inside the cover, and a set of keys on a red cord.

I was travelling on the number 14 service from Ferndown to the city centre on Saturday 12 April. I got on at about four o'clock and left the bus at the station, and I think the bag stayed on the seat by the window upstairs.

Could you please check whether it has been handed in and email me to say when I may collect it?

Yours faithfully,
Amina Farouk

Where marks are usually lost

Candidates often describe the bag carefully and forget the contents, or give the day without the route, so the office could not begin to search. The third bullet is frequently answered with a complaint rather than a request. Writing the contents as a bare list with no sentence structure also limits the language mark, as does drifting into an informal tone with a reader you have never met.