How to Proofread OET Letters: A 4-Minute Checking Routine

Proofreading is where Language marks are recovered, not where they are earned for the first time. Candidates who skip or rush this phase are throwing away points they have already written — grammar errors, spelling slips, and unclear purpose sentences that a 4-minute check would fix. This guide gives a structured routine you can use in every timed practice letter.

For the broader time framework this routine fits into, read the OET writing time management guide.

Why proofreading must be a planned phase

Most candidates treat proofreading as “whatever time is left”. The problem is that drafting expands to fill available time, and the check gets compressed to 90 seconds or nothing. The fix is to protect the final 4 minutes before you start writing — not as a target, as a hard boundary.

At minute 36, stop drafting. If the letter is not finished, cut the least essential content (second examples, courtesy lines) and close. A complete 175-word letter checked for 4 minutes outscores an unfinished 210-word letter every time, because the unfinished one fails Purpose at the closing.

The 4-minute checking routine

The most fixable Language errors — and how to spot them fast

Articles

Missing or wrong articles before clinical nouns is one of the most common Language errors in OET letters. The rule is simple: diagnoses and conditions used as nouns take no article (“hypertension”, “type 2 diabetes mellitus”), but the patient always takes “the” (“the patient”, “the above-named patient”). During minute 4, scan for every noun and verify the article.

Tense shifts

History paragraphs should be past tense. Current status is present or present perfect. A letter that drifts into present tense in the history section (“she presents with fracture in 2024”) confuses the timeline and costs Language marks.

Subject-verb agreement in long noun phrases

“The dose of both medications were adjusted” — “dose” is the subject, so “was” is correct. Long noun phrases bury the subject; read the verb and look left past any modifying phrases to find the actual subject.

Reading backwards for spelling

In minute 4, read from the last word of the letter to the first. This is not natural, which is exactly why it works — your brain cannot autocorrect sequences it is not reading in order. Spelling errors that your forward-reading eye skips (particularly doubled letters, transpositions, and -tion/-sion endings) surface immediately when you force word-by-word backward reading.

Building the habit

Use a timer in every practice session. Write, stop at minute 36, check for 4 minutes, then compare your letter against the case notes manually. After that, submit to the Grammar Checker for an automated Language pass, or send the full letter for professional marking against all six criteria with written feedback.

The Single Letter pack is the fastest way to see which of your checking targets is actually costing you marks — the correction identifies every Language error and explains which criterion it falls under.