One essay, five criteria: the DELF B2 writing paper

One task, sixty minutes, 250 words minimum

What the examiner is reading for

The CEFR describes B2 written production as writing clear, detailed text and arguing for or against a point of view. The exam turns that into one task: an essai, or a contribution to a public debate such as a courrier des lecteurs, the letters page of a paper.

The reader is not looking for the right opinion. They want a position that is stated, defended with reasons, illustrated, and held against the obvious objection. That is what réalisation de la tâche means here. At B2 argumentation is not a separate axis: it is the task itself.

The genre then sets the register. A letters page addresses a whole readership, a formal letter one named recipient, and adéquation sociolinguistique scores how steadily you hold it. A full B2 essay, written out and commented shows that register over a whole script.

The marking grid, criterion by criterion

The rule that scores a good essay at zero

Below half the length the task asks for, the grid stops assessing: the manque de matière évaluable rule zeroes all five criteria at once, rather than costing a few marks.

Above that floor, the penalty is narrower than candidates fear. It falls on réalisation de la tâche alone. The other four criteria are marked on the sentences you did write, on the quality of the ideas present rather than on their volume.

Four of the five criteria are not about grammar, and counting errors is not the method. Surface slips in agreement, in spelling or in the odd conjugation are not penalised while the message stays clear. Lexical spelling sits inside lexique and grammatical spelling inside morphosyntaxe, so one mistake is never charged twice. The subjunctive is expected here, and using it with a few errors beats avoiding it.

Going off task is the other way to lose the paper. The right theme in the wrong genre caps two criteria near the bottom of the scale. Another subject altogether scores zero on three of them, and a blank sheet is zero everywhere.

An annotated model answer that scored 23/25

Planning the hour before you write

The hour is not one block. It is a plan, a text written straight through, and a reread you have to protect. Writing until the last minute costs you the pass that catches agreement errors, and those errors are read on two of the five criteria.

Decide the shape on the scratch paper, not while writing: a position, two arguments with an example each, one objection answered, a short conclusion. The writing then becomes transcription, and transcription is what you can do at speed. Write a timed B2 essay and stop when the timer stops.

1. 1Turn the theme into a question your text answers, and write that answer as one sentence at the top of your draft.
2. 2Set the plan down in three lines: your position, the objection you will meet, the proposal you close on.
3. 3Give one example per argument, and make it concrete: a figure, a case, a named situation. The grid asks for examples in keeping with the situation.
4. 4Use connectors you can spell. The short list a B2 essay needs beats a long list you half remember.
5. 5Reread twice: once for agreement, once against the instruction line. What the grid rewards in practice fills out this list, and a full timed mock tells you whether writing is the paper to work on.

Free lesson: decoding the task before you write

Writing paper questions