Openings: The First Two Sentences
Your opening lines do three jobs at once: state the purpose, fix the register, and commit to a position. Most candidates spend forty words doing none of them.
What the opening has to accomplish
The first two sentences of a response carry more scoring weight per word than anything else you write, because they settle three things that the rest of the answer can only maintain or damage.
They establish the purpose, which is named directly in Task Fulfilment: a clear purpose on Task 1, a clear opinion on Task 2. They establish the register, because the greeting and the first sentence together are where formality is set. And they establish the shape, because an opening that names the subject tells the reader how to organise everything that follows, which is the coherence half of the heaviest criterion.
None of that requires more than about twenty-five words. The reason openings go wrong is not difficulty. It is that the opening is where candidates are most nervous, and nervousness produces throat-clearing.
The throat-clearing problem
Here is a typical Task 1 opening, and it is not badly written: I hope this email finds you well. My name is Daniel Reyes and I am one of your tenants. I am writing to you today because there is a matter that I would like to bring to your kind attention.
Forty-four words, and the reader still does not know what happened. That is a quarter of the response spent before the first fact. Worse, those forty-four words will be missing from the bullet that later gets one thin clause.
The same pattern appears on Task 2: In today's modern society, there are many important issues that communities must consider carefully. Different people have different opinions about how public money should be spent. Twenty-six words of generality, and the option has not been chosen.
Three specific habits produce this. Introducing yourself when the scenario already establishes who you are. Announcing that you are writing rather than writing. And opening with a general statement about society, which is a habit carried over from essay exams and has no place in a 180-word response.
The cure is a rule you can apply mechanically: the first sentence after the greeting must contain a fact from the scenario or a decision. If it contains neither, delete it.
Task 1 openings that work
The pattern is purpose plus identifying detail, in one sentence. Compare the same email opened four ways.
Formal complaint. I am writing about damage that occurred during my move on 14 March, carried out under booking number MR-40821. Purpose and two invented specifics in eighteen words, and the specifics commit you before you can drift.
Formal request. I am writing to request a two-week extension on the final essay for History 210, which is currently due on 8 April. The request, the course and the date, so the reader knows what decision they are being asked to make.
Formal report of a problem. I am writing to report a plumbing problem in my apartment, Unit 4B at 120 Maple Street, that needs your urgent attention.
Informal. The shape is one line of contact, then the point. Hope you're doing well. I've finally moved into the new place in Halifax, and I'm writing because I want you to come and visit in May. The contact line is what makes it informal; deleting it would read as curt, and that is a register error in the other direction.
Notice that none of these opens with I hope this email finds you well in the formal cases. It is not wrong, but it is six words that any email could carry, and in a 180-word budget it is the cheapest thing to cut.
Task 2 openings that work
Task 2 has one job in the first sentence: select an option, by label and by content, and give the reader the first reason or a signal of it.
I would choose Option B, extending the public library's evening and weekend hours. Thirteen words, unambiguous, and it matches the selection control.
A slightly stronger version attaches the reason: I would choose Option B, extending the public library's evening and weekend hours, because the building and staff are already in place. Twenty-two words, and the reader now knows the shape of the argument as well as the choice.
What to avoid is specific and common. Do not write Both options have their merits, because that is a failure to commit in the sentence where commitment is scored. Do not write only I choose Option B without naming its content, because a label alone is thin and risks a mismatch. Do not open with a greeting, because Task 2 is not an email. And do not open with a definition or a general statement about the topic.
One more thing not to do: do not restate the survey prompt. The town has four hundred thousand dollars to spend and must choose between a new arena and extended library hours uses twenty words to tell the reader something they wrote. Reference it inside your reasons instead, where it does work.
Require your first sentence after the greeting to contain either a fact from the scenario or a decision. If it contains neither, it is throat-clearing and should be deleted before you write the next one.
Two openings compared, with the reasons
Version A. Dear Sir or Madam, I hope you are having a good day. My name is Daniel and I recently used your company for a service. I am writing because I was not happy with what happened and I would like to complain about it.
Version B. Dear Ms Okafor, I am writing about damage that occurred during my move on 14 March, carried out under booking number MR-40821, for which I paid $1,340.
Version B is thirty words shorter and does more. It uses the name the prompt supplied, which Version A ignored in favour of Dear Sir or Madam. It names the event rather than announcing an intention to describe one. It lands the entire administrative bullet in the first sentence, which means one of the three bullets is already answered. And it fixes three invented facts, so the rest of the email cannot contradict itself.
Version A also contains a quiet register problem. I hope you are having a good day and I was not happy are conversational, sitting inside a Dear Sir or Madam frame. That mixture is the tone inconsistency that Task Fulfilment penalises.
The difference between these two openings is not vocabulary. Every word in Version B is ordinary. It is that Version B decided what the email was about before the first word, which is what four minutes of planning buys.
Drilling openings on their own
Openings are the single most drillable part of this section, because they are short, they repeat across prompts, and you can practise ten of them in the time one full answer takes.
Take ten prompts and write only the greeting and the first sentence for each. Set ninety seconds per prompt. Then check each one against three questions: does it contain a fact or a decision, does the greeting match the register, and would the reader know what this is about from this sentence alone.
Do the same for Task 2 with the commitment sentence. Ten prompts, ninety seconds each, and the only thing you are testing is whether you named the option and its content without hedging.
The aim is not a memorised sentence. A memorised opening is visible, and it will collide with a prompt it does not fit. The aim is a memorised shape, which adapts to anything: purpose plus specific on Task 1, option plus content on Task 2.
Put an invented specific into the Task 1 opening, such as a date or a reference number. It answers part of a bullet immediately and locks the facts before the rest of the email can contradict them.
Practise it
Five pairs of openings. In each, decide which one is doing the work the criteria pay for.