TEF Canada expression écrite section B: the argument, worked

The TEF Canada writing section B asks you to state a point of view and justify it - usually thirty-five minutes and a floor of about two hundred words, with no published ceiling. You are handed a statement, you say whether you agree, and you back your position with arguments and examples. This is the section that carries the highest word floor and the most criteria, and it is the one candidates starve of time because section A was more fun to write.

Two official permissions save you time if you know them. Formal letter layout is not required - no header, no address, no politeness formula. And generic openings and closings earn no credit: Le sujet dont nous allons parler aujourd’hui est très intéressant et divise beaucoup de personnes spends twenty words saying nothing. The marker is hunting for the substance of your argument. The figures below come from the TEF Canada expression écrite section page; reconfirm the timing on lefrancaisdesaffaires.fr, since these can change.

What plan works for section B?

Take a side in the first sentence - a marker who reads 150 words before learning what you think has already filed your script as vague. You may nuance; you may not sit between two chairs. Four blocks:

• Your position, stated plainly, with the main reason in one sentence.
• A first argument developed as claim, explanation, concrete example.
• A second argument, built the same way, that does not restate the first.
• An objection taken seriously, then answered, and a close that decides.

The argument-and-example pair is the heart of the mark. An argument with no example stays an opinion; an example with no argument stays an anecdote. The criterion the test owner labels “quality of arguments” names development, details and illustrations - three things, not one.

A worked model answer

Statement: Le télétravail devrait devenir la norme pour tous les emplois de bureau. Partagez-vous cet avis ? Two model paragraphs - a position with an example, then the strongest objection answered:

Faire du télétravail la norme pour tous les emplois de bureau serait une erreur, non parce que le travail à distance échoue, mais parce qu’il ne distribue pas ses bénéfices également. Un cadre expérimenté qui connaît déjà ses dossiers gagne du temps chez lui. Une personne recrutée le mois dernier, elle, apprend surtout par ce qu’elle entend autour d’elle : une question posée à voix haute, une réunion à laquelle elle assiste sans y participer. Mon ancienne équipe a intégré deux nouveaux collègues en pleine période de télétravail intégral, et il a fallu près d’un an pour qu’ils deviennent autonomes, contre quelques mois auparavant. On m’objectera que ces échanges peuvent se reproduire en ligne, et il est vrai que rien n’interdit d’ouvrir un canal de discussion permanent. Encore faut-il que le débutant ose y écrire. C’est précisément ce que le bureau rend facile et que l’écran rend coûteux : la question qu’on n’ose pas formaliser.

Read what it refuses to do. It does not open on a generality, does not say the question is complex, does not close by summarising itself. Every sentence either advances an argument, illustrates it, or answers the other side.

What are the six criteria - and why do two matter most?

Section B publishes six criteria against section A’s four: relevance, quality of arguments, internal coherence, cohesion, sentence and vocabulary quality (variety, correctness, precision, fit), and spelling and punctuation. The extra granularity is a clue. Coherence and cohesion are scored as two separate lines, and they correspond to two different faults with two different repairs.

If a practice essay feels flat, work out which of the two is failing before you rewrite, because a text can be coherent and badly sewn, or stuffed with connectors and going nowhere.

Which connectors actually earn marks?

Many candidates sprinkle de plus, en outre, par ailleurs and think they have built cohesion. Those words announce an addition, nothing more. Test each connector by deleting it: if the meaning is unchanged, it was decoration. Replace it with one that commits to a verifiable relation.

• or introduces the awkward fact that moves the reasoning forward.
• en revanche contrasts two comparable cases, not any two ideas.
• certes... mais concedes before taking back the lead.
• à condition que sets the limit of your own thesis.

How do I protect section B’s time?

The whole paper is an hour for both sections, with roughly twenty-five minutes announced for section A and thirty-five for section B. The known danger is that section A is pleasant to write, you linger, and section B gets amputated - the very section carrying the higher word floor and the six criteria. So switch at the announced minute even if a sentence hangs unfinished, because a missing sentence in section A costs less than a missing paragraph in section B. Inside your thirty-five minutes, spend about five decoding the statement and choosing the side you have examples for (not the one you believe most), five laying out the four-block plan with an example noted beside each argument, twenty writing straight through, and five proofreading. Confirm the split on lefrancaisdesaffaires.fr, since it is guidance rather than a fixed rule.

A 250-word essay needs four or five connectors placed where a reader might get lost, not ten. Draft under the clock, check the floor with the word counter, and read your writing result off the two-column TEF Canada score chart so you know which figure Express Entry actually reads. For expression écrite, NCLC 7 is 310 to 348 on the “Équivalence ancien score” column, which is the one to reconfirm on lefrancaisdesaffaires.fr and canada.ca.