How to practise OET Writing at home: a 4-week plan for nurses
Practise OET Writing in short, focused cycles: write a full letter from case notes under timed conditions, check it against the six criteria (or get it marked), rewrite the weakest parts, and keep a list of your own repeated mistakes. A realistic home plan is three to four letters a week over four weeks, rotating letter types (referral, discharge, transfer) and readers, with one skill focus each week: selecting notes, opening and closing, organisation, then language accuracy.
The practice cycle
Writing letter after letter without feedback mostly repeats the same mistakes. Each practice letter should go through four steps:
- Write a complete letter from case notes, ideally timed.
- Check it against the six criteria: Purpose, Content, Conciseness & Clarity, Genre & Style, Organisation & Layout, Language. Use a teacher, a study partner or an AI checker.
- Rewrite the weakest paragraph or the whole letter, applying the feedback.
- Log your repeated errors so you can look for them in the next letter.
Step 3 is the one people skip, and it is where most of the learning happens.
A 4-week plan
This is a sample plan for a nurse studying around shifts, at about three or four letters a week. Adjust it to your time and your current level.
| Week | Skill focus | Letters | What to check most closely |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reading the task and selecting case notes | 3, untimed: one referral, one discharge, one transfer | Did I include every note the reader needs and leave out the rest? |
| 2 | Opening and closing | 3–4, untimed then timed | Is the purpose clear in the first sentence or two? Is the request specific? |
| 3 | Organisation and conciseness | 3–4, timed | Paragraphs grouped by topic; no repeated or unneeded detail |
| 4 | Language accuracy and full test conditions | 3–4, timed as in the test | Tenses, articles, prepositions, spelling; checking time at the end |
Rotate readers as well as letter types: a GP, a specialist nurse, a community nurse, an aged care facility, a social worker or a parent. Each changes what you select and how you explain it. See transfer letters to aged care, letters about a child and writing to a non-clinical reader.
Week 1: selection first
Before writing anything, take each case and mark every note as include, summarise or leave out, with a reason based on what the reader must do. Then write the letter. Afterwards, compare your choices with the feedback. The case-notes selection guide and the Content criterion guide explain the reasoning.
Week 2: the first and last paragraphs
Purpose is marked out of 3, and weak openings and vague requests are among the most common problems. For each new case:
- Write three different opening sentences and choose the clearest.
- Write a closing that names what the reader should do and, where the notes give it, by when.
Use the opening sentence examples and closing paragraph examples as patterns, not scripts.
Week 3: shape and length
Plan the paragraphs before writing (see planning before you write). After each letter, check:
- Does each paragraph have one topic?
- Is anything said twice?
- Could any sentence be cut without the reader missing information?
The Organisation & Layout and Conciseness & Clarity guides go into detail.
Week 4: accuracy under test conditions
Write every letter under the same conditions you will have on test day: the same timing, the same format (handwritten or typed), no dictionary. Leave a few minutes at the end to check:
- every date, dose and name against the notes,
- tense, articles and prepositions in each sentence,
- abbreviations written in full,
- greeting and sign-off matching each other.
The Language criterion guide lists the grammar errors to look for.
Keep an error log
A simple table of your own mistakes is more useful than any general list, because it shows what you repeat.
| Date | Letter | Mistake | Correction | Criterion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 Nov | Referral, wound | "since two weeks" | "for two weeks" | Language |
| 3 Nov | Referral, wound | Did not mention new antibiotic | Added with dose and duration | Content |
| 5 Nov | Discharge, stroke | Request only in last line, vague | "I would be grateful if you could assess her swallowing within 48 hours" | Purpose |
Before each new letter, read the last ten entries. When an error stops appearing for two weeks, move it off the list. For a ready-made list of what other nurses often get wrong, see common OET Writing mistakes.
Self-checking against the criteria
If no one can mark your letter, read it six times, once per criterion, asking one question each time:
| Criterion | Question to ask |
|---|---|
| Purpose (0–3) | Can the reader tell why I am writing and what I want within the first two sentences? |
| Content (0–7) | Is every note the reader needs there, and correct? |
| Conciseness & Clarity (0–7) | Is there anything the reader does not need? |
| Genre & Style (0–7) | Is the tone formal and right for this reader, with no shorthand? |
| Organisation & Layout (0–7) | Does each paragraph have one clear topic, in a sensible order? |
| Language (0–7) | Are the grammar, spelling and punctuation accurate? |
Self-checking catches some problems but tends to miss your own repeated errors, which is why outside feedback helps. OET does not publish how criterion marks convert to the 0–500 score, so any score you get from practice marking is an estimate; see the score calculator guide for the grade bands.
Where to get case notes and feedback
- OET's own preparation materials on oet.com are the best guide to the real test format.
- medEmu practice cases: the medEmu practice page has original Nursing case notes with a timed test (5 minutes' reading time, a 40-minute countdown and a live word count).
- Check a letter: on the medEmu check your letter page you can paste a typed letter or upload a photo of a handwritten one, with or without the case notes. The report gives an estimated grade and score out of 500, a mark for each criterion, which notes you included or missed, every problem marked on your own sentences, and a Grade A model letter for the same case notes. Your first letter is graded free without an account, and you get 5 more when you sign up. Grades are estimates for practice, not official OET results, and medEmu is not affiliated with OET.
Sources
This plan is medEmu's study advice, not official OET guidance; there is no official number of practice letters or study weeks. The six criteria and their mark ranges are as OET describes them. For the current test format, timing and official preparation materials, see oet.com. If you are taking OET for registration, the grade you need depends on your regulator, and requirements change, so check with your regulator.