Letter Congratulating Your Friend on His Success

A congratulation letter is short and warm. Name the achievement in the first line, say why it does not surprise you and what it took, add a wish for what comes next, and stop. The commonest error is padding it out to the length of a descriptive letter — brevity is part of the form here.

The question: Write a letter congratulating your friend on his brilliant success in the examination.

The format

Open with the news, not a formula

Name the achievement in the first line and say how you heard. The stock opening — I am very glad to hear the news of your brilliant success — is what nearly every script writes, so anything specific stands out at once.

• Say who told you, and when.
• State the result plainly.
• One line of your own reaction is enough.

Congratulate the work, not the result

The middle paragraph should recall something you saw: the hours, the difficulty, a time your friend kept going when others stopped. That is what makes the letter sincere rather than merely polite.

• One specific memory, in a sentence or two.
• Say why you were not surprised.
• ⚠️ Do not compare their result with your own.

Keep it short and look forward

Close with a wish for what comes next and a line of regards, then stop. About 150 words in all — padding out a congratulation letter is the commonest error in this question.

Model answer

Model answer (about 150 words)

Jashore Sadar, Jashore

5 September 2026

Dear Sadia,

I heard your result an hour ago from your brother and I have not stopped grinning since. GPA 5 in all four — congratulations. I am delighted, and not in the least surprised.

I remember you sitting in the library in the middle of Ramadan last year, working through past papers while the rest of us were finding reasons to go home early, and I remember thinking then that this was going to happen. People will tell you that you were lucky, or that the questions were easy this year. You and I both know how many mornings went into it. That is what I want to congratulate you for — not the letters on the sheet but the year that produced them.

Now take a proper week off before you start thinking about admission tests. You have earned it. My warmest regards to your parents, who must be unbearable with pride today.

Yours ever,

Roksana

What earns and loses marks

• Keep it to about 150 words. Padding a congratulation letter out to the length of a descriptive one is the commonest error here — brevity is part of the form, and examiners know it.
• Length is not the point — a letter of about 150 words that does the four parts properly beats a rambling 300-word one.
• Keep the tense consistent: a letter about something that happened stays in the past, a letter about a plan stays in the future.
• Ask at least one question of your friend, so the letter reads as one half of a conversation rather than a speech.
• Leave a clear blank line between paragraphs — layout marks are given for what the examiner can see at a glance.

Mistakes to avoid

• ✗ I am very happy to hear the news of your brilliant success in the examination. ✓ I heard your result an hour ago from your brother and I have not stopped grinning since. — the stock opening is the one every script uses