CELPIP Writing Task 1 Questions
Every CELPIP Writing Task 1 question is built the same way: someone to write to, a situation, and three bullets you must all cover. Here is how those questions are put together, and a real one to answer on the exam clock.
Task 1 questions look varied and are not. Strip the story out of any of them and the same three parts are left: a recipient who is named or described, a situation given to you in two or three sentences, and three bullet points that tell you exactly what the email has to do. Everything Task Fulfilment measures is in those bullets, and missing one caps the score no matter how good the English is.
How a CELPIP Writing Task 1 question is built
- The recipient sets the register. A landlord, a manager or a city official gets a professional tone; a friend or a cousin gets a warm one. The prompt never says "be formal", it just names the person, and the register is yours to infer.
- The situation supplies the facts you are allowed to invent. If it says a ticket was issued, you decide the ticket number and the date. Inventing specifics is expected; contradicting the prompt is not.
- Bullet one usually asks for information. Identify the thing: the reference number, the date, the amount, the order, the address.
- Bullet two usually asks you to explain or describe. This is the longest paragraph, because it is where the detail lives.
- Bullet three usually asks for an outcome. What you want done, or what you will accept instead. An email that never asks for anything has left a third of the task unanswered.
- The length is fixed at 150 to 200 words and the clock at 27 minutes. Three bullets in 175 words is roughly 50 words each, which is why one merged paragraph reads as thin.
The six families CELPIP Task 1 questions come from
Across the published material and every test on this site, Task 1 prompts fall into six recurring shapes. Recognising which one you are looking at in the first thirty seconds tells you what bullet three is going to want.
- Complaint or dispute. Something was charged, damaged, delayed or refused. Bullet three asks for a remedy.
- Request. Time off, a repair, an extension, permission. Bullet three asks for a decision by a date.
- Apology or explanation. You cannot attend, you broke something, you missed a deadline. Bullet three offers to put it right.
- Invitation or arrangement. A visit, an event, a meeting. Bullet three asks the reader to confirm.
- Recommendation or suggestion. A workplace or a community wants ideas. Bullet three names the change you want made.
- Information request. You need details before you can act. Bullet three asks for a reply and says why the timing matters.
The Task 1 question on this test
Task 1 is a formal email to the city parking services supervisor, and it is a complaint-and-dispute question. You parked in a permit-holders bay outside 88 Cartier Street in Saskatoon for about ten minutes while you unloaded your mother wheelchair, and came back to a $75 ticket, even though the visitor permit the city mailed you was face up on the dashboard. The online dispute form has rejected your photograph of the permit twice and the appeal window closes in nine days. The three bullets ask for the ticket number, date, time and amount; a description of where you parked, what was on the dashboard and what happened each time you used the form; and a request to cancel, together with what you would accept instead if the city will not.
Notice how much of that you have to supply yourself. The ticket number, the exact date and time, and the two error messages from the form are all yours to invent, and an answer that leaves them vague loses marks that an answer inventing them plainly does not.
And the Task 2 question, so you know what follows
Task 2 is the Winter Maintenance Survey. A town of 12,000 people has $900,000 for one winter service upgrade. Option A is faster street plowing: two more trucks, residential streets cleared in 12 hours instead of 36, the full $900,000 up front plus $140,000 a year, and sidewalks left exactly as they are. Option B is a sidewalk clearing service: one machine clears all 60 km of sidewalks within 24 hours of a snowfall, helping people walking, people using wheelchairs and children going to school, while roads stay on the 36-hour schedule. Task 2 is a survey response, not an email, so it takes no greeting and no sign-off.
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
Both tasks are evaluated against the official descriptors on four criteria: Content and Coherence (30%), Vocabulary (20%), Readability (25%) and Task Fulfilment (25%), each scored 1 to 12 and combined into a weighted band. Task Fulfilment is the one Task 1 questions are designed to test, because the three bullets make it close to mechanical: cover all three with specific content and it holds, drop one and it falls. Worked answers with the reasoning attached are on the CELPIP writing samples page.
Free, both tasks on the exam clock, with expert feedback and a CLB band.
FAQs
What do CELPIP Writing Task 1 questions look like?
Each one names a recipient, gives you a situation in two or three sentences, and then lists three bullet points the email has to cover. You write 150 to 200 words in 27 minutes. The bullets are the task, and covering all three with specific content is what Task Fulfilment measures.
What kinds of Task 1 questions come up?
Six shapes recur: a complaint or dispute, a request, an apology or explanation, an invitation or arrangement, a recommendation or suggestion, and an information request. Recognising which one you have tells you what the third bullet is going to want, which is almost always an outcome or a decision.
Can I invent details in a CELPIP Task 1 answer?
Yes, and you are expected to. Reference numbers, dates, times and amounts are usually left out of the prompt on purpose, so you choose them and commit to them. The only rule is that nothing you invent may contradict what the prompt already told you.
What is the Task 1 question on writing test 7?
A formal email to a city parking services supervisor about a $75 ticket issued while a wheelchair was being unloaded outside 88 Cartier Street in Saskatoon, with a visitor permit on the dashboard and an online dispute form that has rejected the photograph twice, nine days before the appeal window closes.
How long do I get for each task?
Twenty-seven minutes for Task 1 and twenty-six for Task 2, fifty-three in total. The test moves you on automatically when the first timer ends, so unfinished Task 1 work is not recoverable.