Essay writing feedback

The examiner marks you on four categories:

•Content (relevance to question, length, repetition)

•Communicative achievement (register, essay style language, holding reader’s attention)

•Organisation (cohesive devices, linkers, paragraphing, ordering of ideas)

•Language (complexity of grammatical structures, wide vocabulary, errors in language)

Content

•Use examples in the body of the essay. Some of you did not use enough.

•Do not repeat ideas you have already mentioned. Use new ones and make sure they are relevant.

•Inventing statistics is fine but everything in proportion.

•Focus specifically on the question. Mention “young people” in your answer.

Communicative achievement

•An essay should always be formal. That means no contractions, “…”, “well” or “let me give”.

•Give your opinion but try to make the essay as objective as possible. Use plenty of passive structures.

•Questions are good but do not include too many. Too many questions make it sound like an article.

•Your conclusion should paraphrase and summarise the ideas you have already mentioned.

Organisation

•The essay should have 4 paragraphs: Introduction, Body 1, Body 2 and Conclusion.

•The essay should be balanced and give both points of view equal weight.

•Leave a clear line between paragraphs to make it obvious to the examiner.

•“On the other hand” can only be used after “on the one hand”

Language

•Use a large variety of grammatical structures: third conditionals, passives, inversion, unreal past tenses.

•“Not only do young people believe…”

•“No sooner have people become famous than they turn to drink and drugs”.

•“Michael Jackson is believed to have been addicted to several drugs”

•“It’s high time that people woke up and realised that being famous is not the be all and end all”.

•Don’t repeat vocabulary and make it varied. 

Common errors

•Belief (n) – believe (v)

•To provide s.b. with s.th

•“A 40% of people think…” WRONG – “A shocking 40% of people think…” RIGHT

•Los propios jóvenes = young people themselves

•Materialistic

•It is related TO – it is linked TO – it is connected TO

•8 OUT of 10

What you know or who you know?

I strongly believe that having the right skills and qualifications is essential in order to get a good job and succeed in life. However, with the large numbers of people competing for jobs nowadays, aren’t social connections equally important?

Some parents encourage their sons and daughters to keep up with the academic work in order to acquire the necessary knowledge to get into college and obtain a well-paid job one day. These young people do their best to be the first student in the class, they quit their social life and have very few friends. But then when they finish their studies, despite their impressive marks, they struggle to find a job.

On the other hand we can find a group of people who were not necessarily brilliant at college but who have the right connections. They are the ones who get a good place in a company because they know the right people. Having knowledge is undoubtedly important but I think we all need a little push from others to succeed in today´s society.

Nevertheless I want to make it clear that I believe that getting a job only because you have connections is not fair and people should not be given a job if they do not have the right qualifications. The way I see it both, knowledge and connections, are equally important.

Useful phrases from class

This comes down to...

On the one hand...

Without a shadow of a doubt...

To put into practice

Concerning the discussion...

It is much more valuable to...

It opens a lot of doors for you

Nevertheless,

Likewise

On no condition should someone be hired without...

It is of the utmost importance    -   it is paramount to

It is a well-know fact that...

Crucial

Nonetheless

To sum up,

Moreover,

Regarding

Ms Peart and Mr Sellick´s Thursday Classes

Learn the following 17 CAE Sentence Transformations for a test next lesson:

17 Sentence Transformations

Week 14 (Mr. Humphris's class) - new vocabulary and expressions

turning point

to neglect

to jump on the bandwagon

livid (adj)

leap (noun) = jump

mannerisms

to be a burden

to burst into tears

to boo

cross (adj)

crude (adj)

to be paid peanuts

venue

demise

to be high time

to be in with a chance of (verb -ing)

to make an impression on

to grow as a result of

a change for the better

to come as a surprise to somebody

Week 14 transcript from part 3 listening (Mr. Humphris's class)

You’ll hear part of a radio interview in which the comedian and writer Jane Clarkson is talking about her work. For questions 15–20, choose the answer (A, B, C or D) which fits best according to what you hear. You now have 1 minute to look at Part 3. PAUSE 1 MINUTE — *** —

Int: Today I’m with the much-loved comedian and writer Jane Clarkson. Obviously Jane, this year has been quite a turning point for you ...

Jane: Well, I’ll never stop doing comedy, but there were practical reasons for wanting to take some time off and write a book. I felt my daughter had been neglected. She was just about to make the tricky transition from primary to secondary school and I thought she needed her mum around. I seem to have spent most of her life in a van touring from venue to venue for my comedy act. And I did enjoy being at home for a bit, although I missed the applause and the laughter. When I finished writing in the evening, I’d turn the computer off and there’d be nothing, which was hard to get used to.

Int: How was your novel received?

Jane: Well, a lot of male comedians had written books, so there was a bit of a bandwagon waiting to be jumped on, but with my impeccable timing I jumped slightly late, when everyone was starting to get heartily sick of comedians’ books. Also there’s a kind of fury coming from some journalists about comics writing books. They’re absolutely livid, as if they see your book in a bookshop and they jump up and down, shouting, ‘It’s not fair! Why should she make money out of writing as well as performing?’

Int: Was it a difficult transition?

Jane: Well, if you think logically, writing is the obvious step. I’ve spent years trying to make people listen to my anecdotes, so that must count for something! Also, if you’ve been an observational comedian, which I am, it’s not a great leap to use those skills you’ve developed, like observing odd mannerisms to use for jokes, and turn them into a book. At least that’s what I felt, but you don’t become a writer instantly. I’ll have to wait and see whether it was just beginners’ luck.

Int: I think why people give you a hard time about the novel is surely because we’re so trapped into thinking Jane Clarkson is a comedian. It’s as though, you know, you can’t do anything else, which is quite ridiculous because you’ve been writing radio comedy for years.

Jane: Yes, people do become obsessed about what you are. The character I adopted for my comedy act became rather a burden after a while. When I started going on stage alone, I was very young and I wasn’t entirely convincing as a comedian because nervous young women on stage actually frighten audiences. They’re convinced you’re going to fail and burst into tears, which will be very embarrassing. So there’s a palpable tension in the room and some audiences actually boo the female comedians off the stage.

Int: How did you deal with that?

Jane: Well, I had to counteract that stereotype so I started coming on shouting and being madder and crosser than any audience could ever be and that defused the tension. In fact, I rather overdid it and my character got cruder than I ever really intended. I got so good at it that people got confused between the everyday Jane and the stage Jane.

Int: What attracted you in the first place to performing, and particularly to making people laugh?

Jane: Oh, from an early age, I knew I wanted to be an actress. I innocently thought I was going to be a glamorous film star. The reason I started to do comedy acts was that in the 1980s a lot of small provincial theatres closed down. In the past, girls would’ve come out of drama school and if they had a leaning towards comedy they’d join one of these small theatres and play a variety of comedy roles in all sorts of plays from Shakespeare to contemporary stuff. All of a sudden, with the demise of these theatres, rooms above pubs opened up and comedians started telling jokes and developing their acts there. It was cheap, one performer one microphone, and anyone could do it. In some ways, it’s a healthier performance art than acting, because with acting you’re at the mercy of everybody else deciding whether you can work or not. With stand-up comedy, you might only get paid peanuts, but nobody can stop you from just driving to a venue, often hundreds of miles in terrible weather, and going on stage.

Int: But what is it when you’re actually on stage … [fade]