In the Writing Test of the DELE B2, C1 and C2 you will have to write a Carta de Solicitud, a Carta de Petición or a Carta de Candidatura (a letter of request, petition or application), which are all very similar to one another; what you will be asked to do is ask for or request information from another person, a body or an organization.

My first tip for this task is not to limit yourself to direct questions, that is, the ones that carry question marks at the beginning and the end.

That kind of question is very natural for keeping a conversation going, but for these DELE exams I recommend you ask more indirect questions — in other words, that you request information without overusing question marks.

So, to form these questions, you can start by using a conditional, for example "Si fuera/fuese posible...", "Si es posible...", or another kind of structure such as "Si no es/fuera/fuese inconveniente...".

Now, you will need to complete these structures by adding an infinitive right after them, for example, "Si fuera posible me gustaría saber/conocer/pedirle...", or a present subjunctive, as in "Si no es inconveniente, agradecería que me envíe...".

You can also use the imperfect subjunctive to give the text a more formal tone, for example, “Si fuera posible, le agradecería que enviase/enviara... más información”.

“Agradecería”, by the way, is a very good verb to use in these letters, since it is a formal, polite way of expressing yourself.

For the DELE C1, and even more so for the C2, with these verbs of request you can use the subjunctive directly without “que”. For example, “Agradecería ponga interés (en tal asunto)...”, which is useful when we want to influence someone by asking something of them.

In these formal letters there is also a tendency to use a lot of nouns, but I recommend that you sometimes include a noun that corresponds to a verb. For example, instead of “Agradezco ponga interés...”, you can say “Agradezco su interés...”.

Finally, two other very useful, practical structures for these letters are: “Me preguntaba si...” and “Estoy/estaría interesado en...”.

I hope these guidelines and structures have helped you build a richer set of tools for writing the letter in the Writing Test. If you'd like to find out more, you can sign up for my courses designed specifically for the DELE exam: https://aporeldele.com/cursos