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The YKI writing section: tasks, register and what raters reward

10 min read · by the YKIReady editorial team · last reviewed 9 September 2026

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Writing is the section that most often drags an otherwise good candidate below the line. It is also the most improvable, because the failures are usually structural — wrong register, missing content point, unfinished text — rather than a lack of Finnish.

What you are asked to write

At intermediate level the writing section is a set of short tasks rather than one long essay. A typical set contains three pieces with deliberately different audiences:

• An informal message — a note to a friend, neighbour or colleague you know well. Cancelling plans, asking a favour, thanking someone. Short: often 40–60 words.
• A semi-formal or formal message — an email to a landlord, an employer, a school, a shop or an authority. Reporting a fault, requesting time off, complaining about a purchase, asking for information. Around 80–120 words.
• An opinion or discussion text — a short piece for a magazine, forum or workplace newsletter arguing a position on an everyday topic: remote work, recycling, public transport, screen time for children, life in a small town versus a city. Around 150–200 words.

Every prompt contains explicit content points, usually as a bulleted list of things to mention. They are not suggestions. A rater checks them off.

Register is half the mark

Finnish separates spoken and written registers more sharply than English does, and YKI tests whether you can choose the right one. Writing 'mä oon' and 'sä voit' to a housing company reads as inappropriate; writing a stiff 'Kunnioittava' opening to a close friend reads as odd. The safe rules:

Learn six formal openers and six closers by heart. They cost you nothing on exam day and immediately signal control of register.

What the raters actually score

Trained assessors read your text against published criteria. In practice four things decide the band:

1. Task completion — all content points covered, right text type, roughly the right length. Missing one bullet from a three-bullet prompt can cost you a whole band regardless of language quality.
2. Accuracy — case endings, verb agreement, object case, spelling. Small slips are tolerated at level 3; errors that make a sentence ambiguous are not.
3. Range — variety of vocabulary and structures. A text built entirely from 'on', 'menee' and 'tykkää' cannot reach level 4 even if it is error-free.
4. Coherence — paragraphs, connectors (koska, siksi, kuitenkin, toisaalta, lisäksi), and a clear beginning and end.

Finish the text. An unfinished 200-word opinion piece scores lower than a complete 140-word one. Budget your minutes per task before you start writing and stop when the budget runs out.

A worked example

Task: your building's laundry room has been out of order for two weeks. Write to the housing company. Mention (1) what the problem is, (2) how it affects you, (3) what you want them to do, (4) when you are reachable.

Version A does pass: it covers most points and is understandable. But the sentences are all short and simple, the register is thin, there are no connectors, and content point four is vague — 'soita minulle' with no time.

The upgrade is not exotic vocabulary. It is: an identifying first line, a clear paragraph per content point, one subordinate clause with 'koska', a conditional request ('voisitteko'), a concrete availability, and a proper formal closing. Every one of those is a habit you can drill in a week.

How to practise so it counts

1. Always write to a timer. Untimed practice teaches you nothing about the section that fails people.
2. Before writing, spend 60 seconds numbering the content points in the margin, then tick them off at the end.
3. Build a personal phrase bank: five formal openings, five ways to make a polite request, five connectors, five ways to state an opinion and its opposite.
4. Rewrite one old answer per week at a higher band instead of always producing new texts — you learn more from upgrading than from repeating.
5. Get the text assessed against the four criteria rather than only corrected for grammar. A list of red marks does not tell you which band you are in.

Frequently asked questions