Letter to Your Friend About the Bad Effects of Smoking

An advice letter about smoking has to warn without insulting, so open by saying you are writing out of concern, give the harms plainly — health, money, the people around the smoker — and close with encouragement rather than a threat. Naming a specific consequence beats a general statement that smoking is bad.

The question: Write a letter to your friend about the bad effects of smoking.

The format

Say why you are writing, at once

A warning letter must explain itself in the first two sentences or it reads as an attack. Name what you saw or heard, and say you would rather speak than pretend you had not.

• Acknowledging the awkwardness disarms the reader.
• Do not open with a general statement about smoking.

Choose one consequence and develop it

The medical facts are already known to your reader, so repeating them persuades nobody. What works is one specific case: a relative, a neighbour, somebody who was certain they could stop whenever they liked.

• A named person and a length of time is the strongest shape.
• Cost is a good second point — concrete, and rarely used.
• ⚠️ Do not attempt statistics you are not sure of.

End with an offer, not an ultimatum

Close by offering help or company, and by making clear you will not raise it again. That is what keeps the letter from becoming a lecture, and the closing paragraph is where the tone mark is decided.

Model answer

Model answer (about 175 words)

Uttara, Dhaka

5 September 2026

Dear Imran,

I have started this letter twice and thrown it away, because I do not want it to sound like a lecture. But I saw you smoking outside the coaching centre on Sunday, and I would rather say something than pretend I did not.

You know the medical side better than I could explain it — the lungs, the heart, the risk that builds up quietly over years and then arrives all at once. What worries me more is how quickly it stops being a choice. My uncle began at nineteen, told everyone for thirty years that he could stop whenever he liked, and only stopped last year after a scare that frightened the whole family. There is also the plain cost. Two hundred taka a week is nine thousand a year, which is most of a good phone, burnt.

You have smoked for a few months, not thirty years, and that is the whole point of my writing now rather than later. If you want company while you stop, you have it. Write to me.

Yours ever,

Tanvir

What earns and loses marks

• One specific consequence beats a list of general harms. A relative who could not stop for thirty years lands harder than “smoking causes cancer and many other diseases”.
• Length is not the point — a letter of about 150 words that does the four parts properly beats a rambling 300-word one.
• Keep the tense consistent: a letter about something that happened stays in the past, a letter about a plan stays in the future.
• Ask at least one question of your friend, so the letter reads as one half of a conversation rather than a speech.
• Leave a clear blank line between paragraphs — layout marks are given for what the examiner can see at a glance.

Mistakes to avoid

• ✗ Smoking is very bad. It causes cancer. You must stop it immediately. ✓ What worries me more is how quickly it stops being a choice. — concern persuades where commands do not