DELF A1 Writing Sample Paper With Model Answers

There is a quiet scoring gift in the DELF A1 writing paper. Exercise 1 is worth 10 of the 25 marks. It takes about five minutes. It asks you to fill in a form.

Almost nobody practices it.

Candidates spend their preparation writing postcards and messages, then walk in and lose marks on a task that needs no creativity at all. It needs a checklist and a steady hand. That is it.

This sample paper covers both exercises properly. You get a form to complete, a message task with a model answer, and the rules that decide your marks. Everything here matches the current DELF A1 specification.

What Does the DELF A1 Writing Paper Contain?

Two exercises in 30 minutes, marked out of 25. Exercise 1 is a 10-mark questionnaire. Exercise 2 asks for a short personal message of about 40 words and carries 15 marks.

The paper sits with listening and reading in the collective session. All three run back-to-back for one hour and twenty minutes.

You need 50 out of 100 on each of the four papers to pass. You also need at least 5 out of 25 in writing alone. Official sample papers are available for download on the France Éducation International A1 sample subjects page.

If you have not yet chosen your level, the DELF exam guide compares all four.

Sample Paper Exercise 1: The Form

You are given a situation and a form. You complete it with your own details or with details taken from a short text.

Sample task

Exercice 1 : 10 points

Vous voulez vous inscrire à la bibliothèque municipale de Nantes. Vous remplissez le formulaire d’inscription.

BIBLIOTHÈQUE MUNICIPALE DE NANTES Fiche d’inscription

Nom : …………………………………….. Prénom : …………………………………….. Date de naissance : …… / …… / ………… Nationalité : …………………………………….. Adresse : …………………………………….. Code postal : ……………… Ville : ……………… Téléphone : …………………………………….. Adresse électronique : …………………………………….. Profession : …………………………………….. Langues parlées : …………………………………….. Vous aimez lire : ( ) des romans ( ) des BD ( ) des magazines ( ) des livres en français Combien de livres lisez-vous par mois ? ……………… Signature : …………………………………….. Date : ……………………………………..

Model answer

Nom : SHARMA Prénom : Ananya Date de naissance : 14 / 03 / 2003 Nationalité : indienne Adresse : 42, rue des Lilas, appartement 3 Code postal : 44000 Ville : Nantes Téléphone : 06 12 34 56 78 Adresse électronique : ananya.sharma@email.fr Profession : étudiante Langues parlées : hindi, anglais, français Vous aimez lire : (X) des romans ( ) des BD (X) des magazines (X) des livres en français Combien de livres lisez-vous par mois ? deux ou trois Signature : A. Sharma Date : 12/09/2026

How to score full marks on the form

Fill in every single line. A blank line is a lost mark. If a field does not apply to you, write something plausible rather than leaving it empty. You are being assessed on completing a form, not on telling the truth about your life.

• Write the surname in capitals. French forms expect it, and it takes no extra effort.
• Use the French date order. Day, then month, then year. Writing 03/14/2003 signals that you have not learned a basic convention.
• Match the format requested for each field. Code postal takes five digits. Téléphone takes a French-style number if the setting is France. An address électronique needs an @ symbol and a domain.
• Tick the boxes. Candidates leave checkbox questions blank more often than any other field. If a question offers options, choose at least one.
• Answer the short open questions in a few words. “Combien de livres lisez-vous par mois ?” wants a number or a short phrase, not a sentence.
• Do not decorate. No full sentences, no explanations. A form wants data.

Exercise 1 is the clearest example of something I repeat to every beginner group: at A1, marks are lost through habit, not ability. Students who spend one class period on form conventions almost never lose those ten marks again. It is the cheapest scoring gain in the whole diploma, and it takes about forty minutes to secure.

This page is the practice paper. For the syllabus, the vocabulary sets, and the method behind both exercises, see the DELF A1 writing guide.

Sample Paper Exercise 2: The Short Message

You write a personal message of about 40 words. It may be a postcard, an email, a note, or a message to a friend. The situation tells you who you are writing to and why.

Sample task

Exercice 2 : 15 points

Vous êtes en vacances à Paris. Vous écrivez une carte postale à votre amie française Camille. Vous dites où vous êtes, ce que vous faites et ce que vous aimez. Vous proposez de la voir. (40 mots minimum)

Model answer (52 words)

Chère Camille,

Je suis à Paris depuis lundi ! Le matin, je visite les musées et l’après-midi, je marche dans les rues. J’adore les petits cafés ici. Le pain est délicieux.

Je reste jusqu’à samedi. Est-ce que tu es libre vendredi ? On peut prendre un café ensemble.

À bientôt, Ananya

How to approach the message

Count the instructions and answer every one. This task asks four things: where you are, what you do, what you like, and a proposal to meet. Four instructions, four ideas. Correctors tick them off.

Write between 45 and 60 words. The minimum is 40. Producing 19 words or fewer scores zero on the whole exercise, because correctors mark it as insufficient material. Aim comfortably above the line, but do not write 120 words. Long messages at A1 invite mistakes and yield no benefit.

• Open and close properly. “Chère Camille” and “À bientôt” take four words and score on the sociolinguistic criterion. Skipping them is one of the most common ways to drop a band.
• Use tu for a friend and vous for anyone else. Then keep it consistent. Switching mid-message is penalized.
• Join sentences with simple connectors. Et, mais, parce que, alors. The descriptor for the top A1 band mentions exactly these. Three connected sentences beat six disconnected ones.
• Add one small detail of your own. “Le pain est délicieux” is not required by the task. It is the kind of extra that moves a candidate from A1 to A1+ on task completion, because the descriptor rewards saying what you like or dislike.

If you are at the very start and still weighing your options, French or Spanish is worth ten minutes before you commit to a diploma track.

How Do Correctors Award the 25 Marks?

Exercise 1 carries 10 marks. Exercise 2 carries 15, split across five criteria worth 3 marks each: task completion, coherence, social appropriateness, vocabulary, and grammar. Two correctors mark every script.

Here is the band table for exercise 2:

Notice what social appropriateness is worth. Three marks, the same as grammar, for greetings, sign-offs, and choosing tu or vous correctly. That is 12 percent of your whole writing score for something you can learn in an afternoon.

Spelling is included in the vocabulary criterion, and the descriptors are forgiving at this level. At A1, you spell your basic repertoire correctly and write other words phonetically. Nobody expects perfect orthography from a beginner. They expect the words you have been taught to be right.

The published grid and descriptors are available as the official A1 written production grid.

What Does a Weak A1 Message Look Like?

A weak message usually answers two of the four instructions, skips the greeting, and stops at 30 words. The French inside it can be correct, and it still scores badly.

Here is the same postcard task written poorly, then repaired.

Weak version (31 words)

Je suis à Paris. C’est joli. Il fait beau. Je visite. J’aime Paris beaucoup. Le musée est grand. Je mange bien. Je suis content. Paris est une belle ville.

Nothing here is wrong. That is the trap. Every sentence is grammatically correct French.

But look at what it loses. No greeting and no sign-off, so social appropriateness drops. No proposal to meet, so one of the four instructions is missing. Thirty-one words are above the zero threshold but well under the target. Nine short sentences sit side by side with no connector, so coherence lands in the bottom band.

Repaired version (54 words)

Chère Camille,

Je suis à Paris depuis lundi et il fait très beau. Le matin, je visite les musées parce que j’adore la peinture. L’après-midi, je marche dans les rues et je mange des croissants.

Je reste jusqu’à samedi. Est-ce que tu es libre vendredi soir ?

À bientôt, Ananya

The vocabulary barely changed. What changed is the structure. A greeting, a sign-off, three connectors, a time reference, and the missing proposal. Same French ability, roughly six extra marks.

Try this on your own drafts. Write your version, then check four things: the greeting, the sign-off, that every instruction has been answered, and at least three connectors. Repairing is faster than rewriting and teaches you what correctors look for.

The situations behind these messages also appear in the other papers. The A1 listening sample papers cover the same postcard, appointment, and shop vocabulary in audio, and the A1 reading sample papers show how the same documents are used as reading texts.

Which Penalties Can Wipe Out Your Marks?

Four anomalies can cost you the whole exercise. Writing off-topic, writing the wrong kind of text, leaving the page blank, or writing fewer than half the expected words.

Correctors tick these on the grid, and the effects are mechanical:

• Off topic on content. You write about the wrong subject. You can no longer reach the top band on task completion or vocabulary.
• Off topic on text type. You were asked to write a postcard, but you wrote a shopping list. You cannot reach A1 or A1+ on task completion or coherence.
• Both at once. Task completion, coherence, and social appropriateness all drop to zero.
• Blank page. Zero for the exercise.
• Fewer than 19 words. Zero for the exercise, no matter how good those words are.

That last one catches nervous candidates who run out of time. If you have five minutes left and nothing written, write anything relevant. Forty rough words score. Fifteen perfect words score nothing.

Ten Message Types Worth Preparing

A1 message tasks come from a small pool. Prepare a short template for each, and you will recognize almost anything.

1. A holiday postcard to a friend
2. An email inviting someone to a birthday
3. A note left for a flatmate or host family
4. A message accepting or refusing an invitation
5. A short email to book a table or a room
6. A message apologizing for being late or absent
7. A note describing your new flat or city
8. A message asking a friend for information
9. A short thank-you message after a visit
10. A message telling a friend about your weekend

Write each one once, learn the opening and closing lines, and reuse the body structure. Students working through the DELF A1 writing course build all ten in the first month, because templates remove the panic that costs beginners their word count.

What Do Beginners Get Wrong Most Often?

The most expensive habits are leaving form fields blank, ignoring one instruction in the message, missing the greeting, and writing far under the word count.

Two more worth naming.

• Translating from English word by word. “Je suis 22 ans” instead of “J’ai 22 ans.” At A1, the grammar criterion is not harsh, but age, hunger, and weather expressions come up constantly and get noticed.
• Forgetting accents entirely. A missing accent is not fatal at A1. A script with no accents anywhere reads as if the candidate has not learned to write French, and it drags the vocabulary band down.

Count your words before you finish. Not by guessing. Count them. It takes 30 seconds and protects 15 marks.

Does DELF A1 Writing Matter Outside the Exam?

The form-filling skill transfers directly to French administrative life, and the short message is the format most learners in India use first at work. As a credential, A1 is a starting point rather than a requirement for residence or immigration.

French residence permits now start at A2; long-term residence cards require B1; and naturalization requires B2 in all four skills. Those levels changed on 1 January 2026 under decree 2025-648.

For Canada, DELF is not the exam that awards immigration points. TEF Canada and TCF Canada handle that, and their results expire after two years, while DELF diplomas never do.

None of that makes A1 less useful. It sets the writing habits, greetings, and register control that every higher level builds upon.

DELF A1 Written Paper Questions, Answered Simply

Get Your A1 Scripts Marked Before the Exam

Writing is the one paper where you cannot judge your own work. You do not know whether your message reads as A1 or A1+ until someone marks it against the grid.

Our DELF course with mock tests returns every written task with band-by-band feedback, so you can see exactly which of the five criteria is holding your score down. Classes run at the Noida center, and you can take online French lessons from anywhere in India.

Once your writing is steady, pair it with DELF A1 speaking papers so both productive papers are ready together.

Call or WhatsApp 7011164582 to book a free demo and a diagnostic writing task.