Contract Law: Acceptance in Writing - A Minefield?

I thought I'd die after seeing this question from last year's paper: "X and Y entered into an agreement by post, in which it was stipulated that the offer of X would be accepted by Y only if Y wrote back to X. Y however sent a typed acceptance to X. Can the contract be enforced?" I mean, family thinks I can get them out of traffic challans 🙄, but this one had me stumped for ages.

The correct approach is to understand the postal acceptance rule. Under this rule, if an offer is made by post and the mode of acceptance is not specified, acceptance can be shown in any manner which would indicate assent by the offeree. However, in this case, the agreement stipulated that Y had to write back to X, implying that the mode of acceptance must be in writing.