CELPIP Writing Mock Test 14
A medium-rated writing test built around one of the hardest social moves in the section: refusing a favour that has already been half done.
Writing Mock Test 14 is rated Medium. The English required is ordinary; the situation is not. Task 1 asks you to decline help that has already been arranged, and Task 2 asks you to choose an option that abandons 1,100 households or one that serves everybody badly.
Task 1: the informal email
Your uncle Ravi has offered to store your late grandmother piano in his garage in Victoria. He has already cleared a space and asked a friend to help move it. You have since learned that the garage is unheated and that a winter in an unheated space would ruin the instrument, so you have found a heated storage unit instead, and the movers are already booked. The bullets ask for the exact date the movers are booked and the $120 a month the unit costs; an explanation of what cold and damp do to a piano and a step-by-step description of what you would like to happen on moving day instead; and a refusal of his offer that does not hurt his feelings, given that he has already cleared the garage and involved a friend.
Task 2: the survey
The Rural Internet Survey. A rural county has a $2.8 million grant and 1,500 households spread across a wide area. Option A is fibre to 400 homes: the 400 nearest the highway get 1,000 Mbps for $70 a month, and the other 1,100 stay on the 5 Mbps service they have now with no promise of an upgrade. Option B is satellite equipment for all 1,500: every household gets $1,800 toward equipment giving about 60 Mbps, which slows badly in heavy rain and snow and costs $140 a month rather than $70.
CELPIP Writing format: tasks, length and time
| Task | Length | Time |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Writing an EmailEmail to a named recipient, three bullet points | 150 to 200 words | 27 min |
| 2. Responding to Survey QuestionsChoose option A or B and argue for it | 150 to 200 words | 26 min |
| Total | 2 tasks | 53 min |
How your writing is scored
Content and Coherence (30%), Vocabulary (20%), Readability (25%) and Task Fulfilment (25%), each banded 1 to 12 against the official descriptors and combined into a weighted overall band. The report returns the criterion breakdown, error highlights and a high-band rewrite of your own content.
Tips for this test
- Lead with the gratitude, then the reason, then the refusal. Refusing first and explaining afterwards reads as ungrateful even when the words are polite.
- The reason is technical, so keep it short. Two sentences on cold and damp is plenty; the marks are in the moving-day sequence.
- Give him something to do instead. An informal refusal that leaves the other person with nothing scores lower on tone.
- In Task 2, decide whether you are optimising for the best service or the fairest coverage, and say which in your first sentence.
- Use contractions in Task 1. This is an informal prompt and a stiff answer is penalised for register.
Free, both tasks on the exam clock, with expert feedback and a CLB band.
FAQs
What is on writing test 14?
Task 1 is an informal email to an uncle in Victoria turning down his offer to store a late grandmother piano in his unheated garage, after he has already cleared the space and asked a friend to help. Task 2 is a rural county survey choosing between fibre for the 400 homes nearest the highway and satellite equipment for all 1,500 households.
How hard is writing test 14?
It is rated Medium. The vocabulary demand is ordinary, but Task 1 requires you to refuse a favour that has already been half arranged, which is a tone problem rather than a language one.
What register does Task 1 need?
Informal. The recipient is your uncle, so contractions, a warm opening and softened requests are expected, and a stiff business-English answer is marked down under Task Fulfilment.
How much time do I get?
Twenty-seven minutes for Task 1 and twenty-six for Task 2. The test advances to Task 2 automatically when the first timer ends.