Pau Writing Exam Tips & Assessment Criteria

Remember to follow the writing process:

• PAY ATTENTION TO THE FORMAT:
  • Is it an email, an opinion essay, an interview?
  • Is it a letter? Formal? Informal?
  • As there are two options, you can choose the format that suits you best.
  • Be extremely careful with dialogues and interviews (questions are required!!)
• BRAINSTORM FOR IDEAS:
  • Write down all the ideas you can think of.
  • Don’t worry whether the idea is relevant. The more ideas you get, the better. You’ll use only some of them, others will be discarded and others can be used as examples.
  • Don’t worry about grammar or spelling at this stage.
• ORGANISE YOUR IDEAS:
  • Decide which ideas to keep and cross out the others.
  • Group similar ideas together.
  • Organise them in the different paragraphs.
• FOCUS ON LANGUAGE:
  • Think about specific ‘topic’ vocabulary, expressions and grammatical structures that can be used to enrich your writing.
  • Make clear you know how to use modals, relative sentences, passive …
• WRITE A FIRST DRAFT:
  • Write your first draft on the computer or by hand. If you are writing by hand use a pencil. Leave wide margins for notes.
  • Leave space between lines for additions and corrections.
  • Write quickly. Don’t worry about neatness or accuracy.
  • If you can’t think of a word in English, write it in your own language. Look up the word in a dictionary later.
  • If you can’t spell a word, write it any way you can. Then check the word in a dictionary or use a spellcheck when you have finished.
• CHECK YOUR WORK:
  • Use the Writer Checklist to improve your work.
  • Write at least 150 words.
  • Try to be clear, logical and coherent (better a simple, clearly exposed idea than a witty, clever, original idea which cannot be understood)
• WRITE A FINAL DRAFT:
  • If you are writing by hand: copy your corrected work neatly onto a clean sheet of paper.
  • Use a pen and leave a margin on the left-hand side.
  • Make sure your paragraphs are clearly indicated.

Use the Writing Checklist to make sure you took everything into account in the text.

[Partly based on: Selectivitat Writing Guide by Fina Melgar]

Keep in mind the assessment criteria which are linked to the previous Checklist:

– Grammar (1 mark) :

• the correct and appropriate use of morphological and syntactic structures
• the range (variety and complexity) of structures used.

– Vocabulary (1 mark):

• the range and appropriate use of vocabulary (variety of semantic fields, richness, phrasal verbs, collocations, idiomatic expressions, linking words,…).
• the correct spelling of words.

– Text / Paragraph building (1 mark):

• The clarity of organization of ideas within the sentence, the paragraph and the text
• The clear and correct use of punctuation and text markers.

– Maturity (1 mark):

• The skilful handling of the topic (clear thinking, good outline, well-reasoned ideas, creativity, …)

Reminders

• Wrong format: If a composition does not follow the format (letter, dialogue, news report, diary, for and against argumentation, description, narrative, …) of the chosen option, it will be penalized up to 1 point.
• Copying from the text: the use of full sentences or fragments taken from the text will not be considered as personal writing.
• Insufficient length. Compositions under 100 words will be penalized up to 1 point.
• Wrong topic: No points will be given to a composition written on a topic not included in the two given options.