Sixty minutes. Two texts. Two hundred and eighty words minimum.
That sounds manageable until you sit down and realize Section A asks you to do something you have almost certainly never done in any language: continue a stranger’s news report in their voice, from a two-sentence opening, in under 25 minutes.
Most candidates lose marks here not because their French is weak, but because they misread the task. They wrote an opinion piece when the paper wanted a news report. They use the wrong tense. They stop at exactly 80 words, having spent 20 minutes agonizing over the first line.
Below are two complete sample papers, one for each section, with corrected models and the reasoning behind every choice. If you want the marking framework first, our page on TEF Canada writing marking criteria sets that out in detail.
What are the two TEF Canada writing sections?
TEF Canada expression écrite lasts 60 minutes and is scored out of 450. Section A gives you 25 minutes to continue the opening of a fait divers (a short news item) in at least 80 words. Section B gives you 35 minutes to express and justify a point of view in a minimum of 200 words.
The two tasks test different things, and that’s the point.
Section A tests whether you can adopt a register that isn’t your own. News writing is impersonal, factual, and in the past tense. No opinion, no je, no flourish. Many candidates find this harder than Section B because there’s no room to fall back on personal experience.
Section B tests argument. You take a position, support it, acknowledge the other side, and conclude. It’s closer to what you’ve written at school or work, so it feels familiar. The trap is length: 200 words is a floor, not a target, and a 205-word answer rarely shows enough range.
| Section | Time | Task | Minimum |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | 25 minutes | Continue à fait divers | 80 words |
| B | 35 minutes | Express and justify a point of view | 200 words |
These specifications come straight from the exam board’s official test page. They haven’t changed, and any resource quoting different word counts is outdated.
Sample Paper 1: Section A, continuing a news item
The article opening you receive
Here’s a Section A prompt of the kind you’ll meet on exam day.
Complétez l’article suivant (80 mots minimum).
Hier soir, vers 18 h 30, une panne d’électricité a immobilisé une rame de métro entre les stations Berri-UQAM et Sherbrooke. Environ deux cents passagers se trouvaient à bord au moment de l’incident…
Two sentences. That’s all you get. The rest is yours.
Before writing a word, decide three things: what happened next, who was involved, and how it ended. A fait divers has a shape. Something occurs, people respond, the situation resolves, and someone official comments.
A corrected 110-word model continuation
…Privés de lumière et de ventilation, les voyageurs sont restés bloqués pendant près de quarante minutes. Plusieurs d’entre eux ont signalé des difficultés respiratoires, et une femme enceinte a fait un malaise.
Les équipes de la Société de transport de Montréal sont intervenues rapidement. Vers 19 h 10, les techniciens ont réussi à évacuer les passagers par le tunnel, en les guidant jusqu’à la station Sherbrooke. Les services d’urgence ont pris en charge trois personnes, dont deux ont été transportées à l’hôpital par précaution.
Le service a repris vers 20 h 45. Un porte-parole de la STM a précisé qu’une défaillance d’un transformateur serait à l’origine de la panne. Une enquête interne a été ouverte.
That’s 110 words, comfortably over the minimum, and it does five things worth copying.
- It stays in the news register. No je, no opinion, no emotion. The writer reports.
- It adds specific details: times, numbers, and a named organization. Specificity is what makes a fait divers read as authentic. You’re allowed to invent all of it.
- It follows a sequence. Consequence, response, resolution, official comment. That’s the standard structure, and having it memorized means you never stare at a blank screen.
- It varies in sentence length. Short sentences for facts, longer ones for sequences of events.
- It ends cleanly. An investigation opening is a natural close for almost any fait divers.
Which tense does the fait divers actually need
This is where most marks disappear.
French news writing uses the passé composé for completed events and the imparfait for background and ongoing states. Look at the model again:
- Les voyageurs sont restés bloqués (completed event, passé composé)
- Environ deux cents passagers se trouvaient à bord (background state, imparfait)
- Les techniciens ont réussi à évacuer (completed event, passé composé)
Candidates who write the whole thing in the present tense lose marks even when every other word is correct. Candidates who reach for the passé simple because it feels more literary also lose marks, since the passé simple belongs to literature, not to journalism.
One more tense worth knowing: the conditional for unconfirmed information. Une défaillance d’un transformateur serait à l’origine de la panne. That single conditional signals to the examiner that you understand journalistic French at a level well above B1. It costs you one verb form, and it’s worth learning.
Tense control responds faster to targeted drilling than to more reading, which is how the TEF exam preparation program sequences Section A work.
Three things the examiner checks in the first line
Your opening sentence does a lot of work.
- Does it connect? It must continue the given text, not restart it. Beginning with Il y a eu une panne de métro hier repeats what you were given and wastes words.
- Is the tense right? If the first verb is in the present tense, the examiner has already formed a view.
- Is it a news sentence? C’était terrible pour les passagers is a comment, not a report. Les voyageurs sont restés bloqués pendant près de quarante minutes is a report.
Write your opening sentence, read it once, then keep going. Do not polish it. You have 25 minutes and 80 words to produce, and time spent perfecting line one is time stolen from lines two through ten.
Sample Paper 2: Section B, arguing a position
The question and the trap inside it
Section B (200 mots minimum)
De plus en plus d’entreprises expérimentent la semaine de quatre jours. Certains estiment que cette organization devrait devenir obligatoire pour toutes les entreprises. Qu’en pensez-vous ? Donnez votre avis et justifiez-le.
The trap is the word obligatoire.
A careless candidate answers, “Is the four-day week a good idea?” That’s not the question. The question is whether it should be compulsory for all companies. You can think the four-day week is excellent and still argue against forcing it on everyone.
Read the question twice. Underline the operative word. Answering a slightly different question is the fastest way to lose task-completion marks with otherwise good French.
A corrected 225-word model response
La semaine de quatre jours séduit de plus en plus de salariés, et je comprends pourquoi. Faut-il pour autant l’imposer à toutes les entreprises ? Je ne le pense pas.
Il est vrai que cette organization présente de réels avantages. Plusieurs études menées en Islande et au Royaume-Uni montrent que la productivité reste stable, voire augmente légèrement. Les salariés se disent moins stressés et s’absentent moins souvent. Sur le plan familial, un jour supplémentaire permet de mieux concilier vie professionnelle et vie privée. Ces résultats sont encourageants.
Cependant, une obligation générale me paraît inadaptée. Toutes les entreprises ne fonctionnent pas de la même manière. Un hôpital, un restaurant ou une usine ne peuvent pas simplement fermer un jour de plus par semaine. Dans ces secteurs, réduire le temps de travail signifie embaucher davantage, ce que les petites structures ne peuvent pas toujours financer. Une loi uniforme risquerait donc de fragiliser précisément les entreprises les plus vulnérables.
À mon avis, la solution se situe ailleurs. L’État devrait encourager cette organization par des incitations fiscales plutôt que par une obligation. Les entreprises qui le peuvent l’adopteraient volontairement, et les autres garderaient la souplesse nécessaire à leur survie.
En somme, la semaine de quatre jours mérite d’être développée, mais par la persuasion et non par la contrainte.
That’s 225 words. Look at how it’s built.
- Paragraph 1 states the position immediately. No throat-clearing, no « dans le monde d’aujourd’hui ». Two sentences and the reader knows where you stand.
- Paragraph 2 concedes the other side. This is not weakness. Acknowledging the opposing argument before dismantling it is exactly what a B2 examiner is looking for.
- Paragraph 3 delivers the counter-argument with concrete examples. A hospital, a restaurant, a factory. Concrete beats abstract every time.
- Paragraph 4 offers a middle path. This lifts an answer above a simple yes or no.
- Paragraph 5 closes with a memorable contrast in a single sentence: par la persuasion et non par la contrainte.
Building a plan in six minutes
Thirty-five minutes for 200 words feels generous. It isn’t, if you start writing without a plan and have to restructure halfway.
Here’s the split that works:
| Minutes | What you’re doing |
|---|---|
| 0 to 2 | Read the question twice. Identify the operative word. Decide your position. |
| 2 to 6 | Jot the plan: position, one concession, two counter-arguments with examples, a middle path, a closing line. |
| 6 to 28 | Write without stopping. Do not go back to fix things. |
| 28 to 35 | Reread for agreement, tense, and accents. Count words. |
The rule that saves the most marks is the third one. Once you start writing, keep going. Candidates who edit as they write consistently run out of time, and an unfinished Section B costs far more than a few gender errors.
If you’re also preparing the receptive papers, our TEF reading practice sets drill the same connectors from the other direction, which speeds both up. The TEF micro-trottoir listening items train argument tracking by ear, and the TEF speaking role-play models put the structures you have just built on paper to work out loud.
Does going over the word minimum help or hurt?
Writing more than the minimum helps, up to a point. Section A works best at 100-130 words; Section B at 220-260. Going far beyond that increases the risk of error without increasing range, and it eats into the time you need for checking. Falling below the minimum is penalized directly.
The minimums are 80 and 200. Treat them as floors.
An 82-word Section A tells the examiner you produced the smallest acceptable amount of French. A 115-word Section A gives you room to show two or three tenses, a conditional, and some varied vocabulary. That’s more surface area for marks.
The other direction has limits. A 350-word Section B written in a rush contains more agreement errors, more tense slips, and more awkward constructions than a controlled 240-word one. And you’ll have no time left to check it.
Practical target: write to the upper band, then stop and check.
Counting words on exam day. You don’t need an exact count. Learn what roughly 100 words look like in your own handwriting or typing, and use that as a gauge. Counting every word wastes minutes you cannot spare.
Which French connectors earn marks in TEF writing?
Examiners reward connectors that signal position, concession, contrast and consequence: selon moi, il est vrai que, cependant, par conséquent, en somme. Four or five placed well across 225 words reads as controlled writing. Twelve reads as a checklist, so rotate them instead of repeating.
Connectors are the cheapest marks on the writing paper. They cost nothing to memorize, and they directly signal the cohesion the examiner is grading.
- Stating a position Selon moi / À mon avis / Je suis convaincu que / Il me semble que
- Conceding Il est vrai que / Certes / On peut comprendre que / Bien sûr
- Turning the argument Cependant / Néanmoins / En revanche / Pour autant
- Adding De plus / Par ailleurs / Non seulement… mais aussi / À cela s’ajoute
- Giving examples Par exemple / Prenons le cas de / C’est notamment le cas de / Ainsi
- Cause and consequence Puisque / Étant donné que / Par conséquent / Ce qui explique que
- Concluding En somme / Pour conclure / Tout bien considéré / En définitive
Letter formulas worth memorizing
Section B often takes letter form, and these fixed phrases cost you nothing to learn.
| Situation | Opening | Closing |
|---|---|---|
| You don’t know the name | Madame, Monsieur, | Je vous prie d’agréer, Madame, Monsieur, mes salutations distinguées. |
| You know the title | Madame la Directrice, | Je vous prie d’agréer, Madame la Directrice, l’expression de mes sentiments respectueux. |
| Formal but familiar | Chère Madame Dupont, | Cordialement, |
| Informal | Bonjour Marie, | À bientôt, |
One rule that matters more than the formula itself: whatever you open with, repeat it exactly in the closing. Opening “Madame la Directrice” and closing “Madame, Monsieur” is the kind of slip an examiner notices immediately.
Two warnings from marking hundreds of these papers.
First, do not open every paragraph with a connector. Four or five well-placed ones across 225 words read as controlled. Twelve reads as a checklist.
Second, avoid the ones the skill guides overuse. De plus, appearing three times in one text is more noticeable than you’d expect. Rotate.
For fait divers writing, a different set of matters: aussitôt, peu après, vers 19 h 10, dans la foulée, finalement. Time markers do the connecting work in news writing.
Which writing score do you enter into Express Entry?
Your TEF certificate shows a writing score of 428 or above, which corresponds to NCLC 7 on the 699 scale. IRCC does not accept that number. IRCC uses the Équivalence ancien score column, where NCLC 7 writing is 310-348. Entering the /699 figure in your Express Entry profile can result in a refusal.
This is the single most expensive mistake in the whole TEF Canada process, and it has nothing to do with your French.
Your attestation de résultats has two columns. The exam board reports your performance on a 699-point scale. IRCC’s system was built around an earlier scale and still uses it.
| Where you’re reading | NCLC 7 writing |
|---|---|
| Your TEF certificate, /699 column | 428 to 471 |
| Your Express Entry profile | 310 to 348 |
IRCC states this on its language test results page, with an explicit instruction not to enter the /699 results and a warning that incorrect scores may cause refusal.
Check both columns on your attestation before you touch your profile. If your certificate is missing the ancien score column, contact the test center rather than guessing.
Worth knowing, too: your results must be less than two years old both when you create the profile and when you submit for permanent residence. If you’re mapping out a timeline, our piece on how long CLB 7 really takes works backward from a target draw date.
How is TEF Canada writing marked?
Four criteria carry the score: task completion, coherence and cohesion, lexical range, and grammatical range and accuracy. Range counts as much as accuracy, so a text with two minor errors and varied structures outscores a flawless one built entirely from simple present-tense sentences.
Those four apply to both Section A and Section B, though they reward different things in each.
- Task completion. Did you do what was asked, at the required length, in the required register? A beautifully written opinion piece submitted for Section A scores badly here, regardless of quality.
- Coherence and cohesion. Does the text hold together? Are paragraphs organized? Do connectors link ideas rather than decorate them?
- Lexical range. How varied is your vocabulary? Repeating important six times caps this. Reaching for essentiel, crucial, déterminant, majeur lifts it.
- Grammatical range and accuracy. Both words matter. A text with no errors but only present-tense simple sentences scores lower than one with two minor slips and a range of tenses, a conditional, and a relative clause.
That last point is the one students find hardest to believe. Playing safe caps your score. The examiner needs to see complexity to award a high band, and a small number of errors inside complex structures is expected at B2.
In our correction sessions, the most common single note we write is “correct, but too simple.” Candidates protect themselves from the score they’re capable of.
How LanguageNext covers TEF writing
A fait divers you wrote is worth nothing until somebody marks it against the band.
Writing practice without correction is just writing practice. You repeat the same tense error for six weeks, feel productive, and score what you would have scored in week one.
Our TEF writing work follows a weekly submission schedule with a set turnaround time. Students send one Section A and one Section B. Both come back annotated at band level rather than merely corrected: which errors block comprehension, where the register drifted, whether the word count sat in the productive range, and which structure would have lifted the answer a band.
The three things we drill hardest are the ones that move scores fastest: tense discipline in the fait divers, the concession-then-counter structure in Section B, and connector rotation, since overuse is as visible to an examiner as absence.
Classes run at the Noida center and as live online sessions across India, in regular, fast-track, weekend, crash, one-to-one, and corporate batches. Each group has six to ten students, which makes weekly individual correction sustainable rather than token.
Material, assessments, and doubt-clearing are included with no separate charge, and full-length mocks run under exam conditions with a scored report against the official criteria. If you are not yet at B1, French classes you can take from home will build the underlying level.
Send us one writing sample, and we will tell you the band it sits at. Two hundred words, whatever you can produce today. Call or WhatsApp us, or bring it to the Noida center.
How is this TEF Canada Writing Sample page verified?
The 80-word and 200-word minimums, and the 25- and 35-minute splits between the two sections, are published by Le français des affaires rather than inferred from candidate reports. The two writing score figures come from separate official sources: 428 from the board’s correspondence table, and 310 to 348 from IRCC. The most expensive mistake on this paper is confusing them, so both are labeled above with the destination each one belongs in.
About the author. Vikash Gupta is a linguist and the founder of LanguageNext, a French and Spanish institute that has taught in Noida and online across India since 2014. He has taught both languages for over fifteen years and prepares candidates for DELF, TEF Canada, and TCF Canada.
Update policy. This page is rechecked whenever either board revises its published test specifications or IRCC changes its conversion tables. The review date at the top moves only when something material has changed, not on a schedule.