Stuck at 9 out of 20 in TCF Canada writing

A 9 out of 20 in writing is the most frustrating TCF Canada result. In France Éducation international’s (FEI) grid, 6 to 9 out of 20 is B1 and 10 to 13 is B2. In IRCC’s table, 7 to 9 out of 20 gives NCLC 6, and NCLC 7 starts at 10. So you are one point short, but that point moves you up a level.

FEI does not return annotated scripts or give advice on how to improve, and its handbook says so plainly. You have to find out for yourself what holds the mark back. This page starts from the criteria FEI publishes and from what we see in texts marked by our tool.

How the mark out of 20 is built

Two markers each give the three tasks a level from “A1 non atteint” to C2, without seeing each other’s marks. A calculation rule turns those six levels into one final mark. FEI does not publish the rule, as explained in how many points each task is worth. What is certain is that all six levels go into the calculation. In our reading, one weak task therefore weighs on the mark even when the other two are good.

The handbook groups the criteria into three families. Linguistic covers vocabulary, grammar, spelling and sentence building. Pragmatic covers coherence, cohesion and how the topic is developed. Sociolinguistic covers fit with the situation.

The five usual causes of a 9

The link between each cause and the mark is our reading of FEI’s criteria, not an official scale.

1. A weak or unfinished task. Often task 3, written in ten minutes at the end. A task left undone or outside its word range is one of the cases FEI lists for “A1 non atteint”. Even short of that, a 125-word task 3 that does not compare the documents weighs on the six levels.
2. Mistakes that keep coming back. One slip does not change a level. The same agreement error in every paragraph shows a rule you have not mastered, which is what the linguistic criterion measures. See do spelling mistakes cost points.
3. The wrong register. Tu with a stranger, or “salut” to a manager. That is the sociolinguistic criterion. In our French interface it was one of the two things that separated our text at 9 from the same text at 12 below.
4. A task 3 that summarises instead of comparing. Two paragraphs of “the first document says… the second says…” with nothing linking them. FEI assesses comparing two points of view and rephrasing, and copying sentences from the documents is a case it lists.
5. Correct but always simple sentences. Subject, verb, object, then et, mais, donc. Nothing is wrong, but nothing shows B2. B1 or B2 writing shows one answer at both levels.

A real text that went from 9 to 12

This text is ours, written for the topic a note to your new neighbour. We ran it through our corrector on 2 November 2026. It is an AI estimate, not an official result.

Bonjour Marc,

Je m’appelle Sara, je suis ta nouvelle voisin de l’appartement 304. Je voulais te prévenir que samedi je vais déménager entre 9 h et 15 h. Il y aura beaucoup de bruits dans l’escalier et je suis désolé pour le dérangement. Pour me faire pardonner, je t’invite à prendre un café chez moi dimanche matin, si tu es disponible. Si le bruit est trop fort, n’hésite pas de frapper à ma porte. Merci pour ta compréhension.

À bientôt,
Sara

Estimated result 9 out of 20, range 7 to 11, NCLC 6. The corrector found four mistakes and rated language B1 for the agreement errors, with organisation and fit for the reader at B2. In the French interface, the same text also got B1 for fit for the reader, because tu is very familiar for a first contact.

We fixed the four mistakes and switched the message to vous. The only other changes are Sara et je suis instead of Sara, je suis, vraiment before désolée, and Merci de instead of Merci pour.

Before	After	Why
ta nouvelle voisin	votre nouvelle voisine	Sara is a woman, and the register moves to vous
beaucoup de bruits	du bruit	bruit stays singular here
je suis désolé	je suis vraiment désolée	agrees with the writer
n’hésite pas de frapper	n’hésitez pas à frapper	hésiter takes à before a verb, plus vous
Merci pour ta compréhension	Merci de votre compréhension	a more formal closing

Estimated result 12 out of 20, range 10 to 14, NCLC 8, with no mistakes found, in both interfaces. The content is the same. What changed is four agreements and the register.

One case does not prove that fixing four mistakes earns three points on exam day. It shows that, on a text that is already complete, repeated mistakes and register are often what separates B1 from B2.

What to do with your own 9

1. Write one task in real time, for example with the task 1 timer.
2. Have it corrected on NCLC Prep, then sort each mistake into one of the five causes above.
3. Rewrite the same text fixing only those mistakes and have it corrected again. If the score does not move, the cause is elsewhere, often in task 3.
4. Keep a notebook of the mistakes that come back and reread it before each new text. The 4-week plan organises that work.

The most common mistakes, task by task, are in the mistakes that cost NCLC 7.