Writing Referral Letters for OET: 3 Mistakes to Avoid

Writing Referral Letters for OET: 3 Mistakes to Avoid Writing referral letters is an essential part of just about every healthcare professional’s life—which is why it’s an integral part of the OET writing sub-test. So, polish up your referral-writing skills during your training period.

Enroll in an OET review center in Quezon City to find out what you can expect out of this section of the high-stakes exam. Take all the referral-writing exercises provided by your instructors seriously. Avoid the following mistakes to enhance your letters and boost your chances of scoring high in the OET writing- sub-test.

1. Misplacing the date and the address Should you write the address on top of the letter? How about the date? Should it be written over or under the address? How should it be written? If you don’t know the answer to these questions, the guidelines below should enlighten you.

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You can write the date over or under the address.

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Leave a line space between the date and the address.

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Write the date on top of the page in full form (e.g., 21st December 2018).

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Write the date in the body in the standard date format with slashes (e.g., 12/21/2018).

Misplacing the date and the address will affect your score. Enroll in an OET review in Quezon City to find out more about the standard referral letter format.

2. Being unfamiliar with the assessment criteria If you don’t know how your letter is going to be scored, how can you ensure it’s going to get high marks? Below are the five grading criteria of the OET writing sub-test. Consider them when you write referrals.

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Overall Task Fulfillment To cater to this criterion, you must:  write an effective referral letter  ensure our referral letter includes all the essential information

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Comprehension of Stimulus To cater to this criterion, you must:  demonstrate your understanding of the stimulus notes  accomplish all the task requirements  determine and transform the relevant materials into an effective referral letter

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Appropriateness of Language To cater to this criterion, you must:  demonstrate on-point word choice by using appropriate language and expressions  use the right level of formality for the situation  employ an organized and formulaic sequence that’s appropriate to the purpose of the referral letter

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Presentation Features To cater to this criterion, you must:  demonstrate your control of spelling and punctuation convention  use the conventional referral letter layout  have an appropriate opening and closing salutations  ensure your letter includes the receiver’s name and address

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Linguistic Features To cater to this criterion, you must:  demonstrate your control of cohesive devices (e.g., pronouns, connectives, conjunctions, etc.) and grammatical elements  ensure your letter has no repetitive and redundant content

3. Not proofreading your letter Content, grammatical, and structural inconsistencies can bring down your score.

So, always leave time to review your letter. Check your spellings, abbreviations, capitalizations, and punctuations. Make sure you accomplished all the task requirements.

Do you want to learn how to write effective referral letters not just for the OET writing sub-test, but also for your professional ventures? Prepare with a first-rate training facility like the JRooz OET review in Quezon City!