Letter to Your Friend About Your Preparation for the Examination

Say which examination you mean and how far away it is, describe your routine — what you study when, and which subjects are giving trouble — and ask about your friend's preparation in return. A letter that only reports your own progress and never asks after the reader loses the two-way quality an informal letter needs.

The question: Write a letter to your friend about your preparation for the examination.

The format

Build the letter around a routine

A routine gives you three sentences of real content: what you study when, and why in that order. Without one the middle paragraph collapses into I am studying hard, which says nothing.

• Name the hours and the subjects.
• Give the reason for the order — hardest first, or reading last.
• Say what you changed recently; it shows the routine is real.

Admit one difficulty

A letter in which everything is going well has nothing to say. Naming one weak subject gives the paragraph its shape and gives your friend something to reply to.

• Be specific: which part of which subject.
• Say what you are doing about it.
• 🚨 One difficulty is enough — more turns the letter into a complaint.

Ask a question that can be answered

Close by asking about your friend's preparation, and ask something specific — how they approach the subject you find hard. A general how is your preparation invites an equally general reply.

Model answer

Model answer (about 170 words)

Rajshahi Court, Rajshahi

5 September 2026

Dear Faria,

It has been a while. The HSC is nine weeks away now, which I try not to count, and I thought I would write and compare notes before we are both too busy to.

My routine has settled into something workable at last. I get up at five and do Physics first, because it is the subject I am worst at and I have learned that anything left until evening does not get done. Afternoons are for English and Bengali, which need reading more than problem-solving, and I keep the last hour before bed for revising whatever I did the previous day. Mathematics is going reasonably. Physics is not — I can follow the theory perfectly well and then lose myself in the numerical problems, and I have started doing five a day whether I want to or not.

How is yours going? You were always better at Physics than me, so if you have a way of thinking about the problems I would genuinely like to hear it. Write when you can.

Yours ever,

Anik

What earns and loses marks

• Admit one difficulty. A letter in which everything is going well has nothing to say, while naming a weak subject gives the middle paragraph its shape and gives your friend something to answer.
• 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

• ✗ I am preparing very well for the examination and I hope I will do a good result. ✓ I get up at five and do Physics first, because it is the subject I am worst at. — also note: do a good result → get a good result