OET GUIDES · LAST REVIEWED 9 JULY 2026
OET Writing tips that actually move the grade, not just fill time
By the MedEngly clinical team, led by a UK based IMG doctor who came through this pathway.
Most OET Writing tips lists are generic: plan your time, check your spelling, use formal language. They are not wrong, but they do not tell you which criterion each tip improves, so you cannot tell which ones matter for your result. OET Writing is scored against six criteria, and a tip only helps if it targets a criterion that is costing you marks.
Here are the tips that reliably move scores, grouped by the criterion they act on, so you can pick the ones aimed at your weak spot.
Content and Purpose: select, do not transcribe
The single highest-value habit is selection. Before writing, read the task to fix who your reader is and what they must do, then mark each case-note line as needed or not needed for that reader. You are choosing the facts this reader must have to act safely, not summarising the whole record.
State your purpose in the first sentence and make your requests explicit near the end. A reader who cannot tell in the opening why the letter has arrived, or in the closing what they must do, will score the letter low on Purpose no matter how clean the English is.
Conciseness and Clarity: respect the word budget
Treat the roughly 180 to 200 word body as a selection instrument, not a target to pad to. If your draft runs past 250 words you have almost certainly included material the reader does not need. Group related facts into single sentences and cut anything that repeats.
Expand notes into full sentences, but compress as you do it: several related note lines should become one clean sentence carrying only what matters. Transferring abbreviations and fragments straight into the letter costs marks across several criteria at once.
Genre and Style: match the reader
Choose your level of terminology from who the reader is. A consultant can carry clinical language; a community nurse or a patient cannot. Keep the tone formal, factual, and neutral throughout, and never editorialise about the patient's choices, even when the notes record frustrating behaviour.
Organisation and Layout: cheap, visible marks
Open with the address block, date, salutation, and a subject line identifying the patient. Give each body paragraph a single job: current situation, relevant background, then requests. Put the actions you want near the end where a reader expects them. These conventions cost seconds and their absence is visible instantly.
Language and timing: control beats ambition
Prefer the sentence you can control over the impressive one you cannot. Most candidates have three or four recurring error types, not thirty; proofread specifically for yours. Hold the final 5 minutes of the 45 for checking, whatever state the letter is in: a complete, checked, slightly plainer letter outscores an ambitious unfinished one.
The tip underneath all the others: get marked
You cannot target a criterion you cannot see. The fastest way to improve is to get a practice letter marked against the six criteria, find the one or two criteria sitting below the others, and aim your next letters at that gap. Ten letters written against a plan and marked teach more than thirty written blind.
COMMON QUESTIONS
How can I improve my OET Writing score quickly?
Find your weakest criterion and aim at it, rather than practising generally. Most candidates lose marks on selection, Content and Conciseness, by transcribing the case notes instead of choosing what the reader needs. Getting letters marked against the six criteria shows you which one to fix.
How many words should an OET letter be?
Standard tasks indicate roughly 180 to 200 words in the body. Going far over usually signals poor selection and costs marks under Conciseness and Clarity; the budget is part of the test, not a minimum to reach.
What is the most common OET Writing mistake?
Reproducing the case notes in prose at two or three times the needed length. Every fact is present, so Content holds, but Conciseness and Clarity drops and Organisation often follows because the note order is not the reader's order.
Can I use bullet points in an OET letter?
No. The task asks for a professional letter in complete sentences and conventional paragraphs. Structure comes from paragraphing and sequencing, not from lists or headings.
PUT IT INTO PRACTICE
Reading about the criteria is the start; seeing them applied to your own letter is what moves the grade. Get one letter marked against all six criteria, free, no signup.
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Independent preparation guidance based on publicly available OET materials; not affiliated with, or endorsed by, OET or Cambridge Boxhill Language Assessment. Regulator requirements change: confirm current scores with the regulator you are registering with.