Letter to the Editor Sample CPE exam 2017

Good morning Gustavo, I have read in your blog that you offer yourself to correct CPE writings I have decided to send you one so you could give me some comments and feedback in respect.

Thank you,

Clara Grau

You read this comment recently in a literary magazine about a book you enjoyed reading. “The author’s use of language to build up atmosphere and to give insights into the characters’ thoughts and emotions is not as effective as it could be. This was a disappointing aspect of the book”. You disagree and decide to write a letter to the magazine, expressing your opinion. Write between 280 and 320 words.

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am writing to you because I disagree with a comment posted in your last week’s magazine issue about the last novel of Sarah Nuttall, and I would like to give my opinion in respect to it. For the past two months, I have been experiencing a tough time due to family problems and it has been very difficult to me to find something to entertain myself with and give me the necessary energy to keep going. However, this changed last week, when I started reading the book I mentioned before (name of the book).

The novel is based on a real case and tells the story of a young woman whose family dies in a plane crash and has to get through this horrible situation all alone. Despite seeming a drama at the very beginning, you soon begin to realize that the last thing she is going to do is giving up. Thanks to the simplicity of the author’s language, the reader is able to get an idea of her feelings and take her place to understand the emptiness she is experiencing. (You "entertain yourself" reading about a plane crash? )

Contrarily to what superreaderexpresses in his comment, I believe that Nuttall achieves to perfectly describe the thoughts of the main character and her disorientation after the tragedy. Although it is true that she does not use a very detailed and descriptive vocabulary referring to emotions, this is perfectly understandable to me because, by doing this, she avoids an overdose of sentimentalism and allows the reader to imagine by his own.

Being always in favour of the freedom of speech and opinion, I think it is positive to see that your impression of a book can differ substantially from the one of another reader. Nevertheless, to help your readers decide whether to buy it or not, I would like to recommend you that you include including more than one opinion for every single work you talk about book that is discussed.

Yours faithfully,

Clara Grau