SACE Stage 2 English as an Additional Language cheat sheet

Register is the formality level of language chosen for audience and purpose; formal register avoids contractions, slang and first-person anecdote, while informal register permits them.

Audience positioning: a report for a school council uses third person and passive voice; a letter to a friend uses second person, direct address and evaluative adjectives.

Purpose categories in SACE EAL tasks are typically inform, persuade, explain, evaluate, and reflect; each purpose implies a dominant text type and tone.

Cohesion is achieved through referencing devices (pronouns, demonstratives), lexical chains (repeated or synonymous content words), and conjunctions marking addition, contrast, cause, and sequence.

Cohesive devices fall into four functions: additive (furthermore, in addition), adversative (however, nevertheless), causal (therefore, consequently), and temporal (subsequently, meanwhile).

Paragraph structure follows topic sentence, supporting evidence or example, and a linking or concluding sentence that ties back to the controlling idea.

Spoken interaction conventions: turn-taking signals, backchannelling (mm, right), clarification requests, and repair strategies when meaning breaks down.

Non-verbal and paralinguistic features (pace, stress, pause, gesture) carry meaning in oral presentations and must be planned, not incidental.

Text-type conventions differ by genre: recounts use chronological order and past tense; procedures use imperatives and sequenced steps; expositions use thesis plus argument plus reinforcement.

Skimming obtains gist from headings, topic sentences and first/last paragraphs; scanning locates specific detail such as names, dates, figures and keywords.

Inference means deriving unstated meaning from textual clues; it must be supported by evidence in the text, unlike speculation.

Literal comprehension questions are answered with directly stated information; inferential questions require combining two or more stated details.

Author purpose and tone are signalled by word choice (loaded adjectives, modal verbs), punctuation, and the balance of fact versus opinion.

Fact versus opinion test: a fact is verifiable by external evidence; an opinion expresses evaluation, judgement or prediction and often carries evaluative adjectives or modals.

Text organisation is mapped by signposting: headings, connectives, numbered steps, bullet points, and paragraph breaks each signal a shift in function.

Vocabulary in context: meaning is determined by surrounding collocations and grammatical role, not by the first dictionary sense listed.

Summarising requires deleting detail, generalising examples into categories, and integrating the result into a shorter sentence using own words.

Comparing two texts on one topic means identifying shared claims, points of divergence, and differences in audience, purpose and register.

An exposition structure is thesis (position statement), two to four body arguments each with evidence, a counter-argument with rebuttal, and a conclusion restating the position.

A discussion structure presents both sides with a balanced conclusion; the writer's own position appears in the conclusion, not the introduction.

A recount uses past tense, chronological connectives (first, then, afterwards), and orientation (who, when, where) before the sequence of events.

A procedure uses imperative verbs, adverbials of manner, and numbered or sequenced steps; it omits first-person commentary.

A narrative requires orientation, complication, and resolution, and uses dialogue, sensory detail and varied sentence length for effect.

Sentence variety is created by mixing simple, compound (coordinating: and, but, so) and complex (subordinating: because, although, while) sentences.

Cohesion in writing is improved by nominalisation (turning verbs into nouns, e.g. 'they decided' into 'the decision') which raises formality and density.

Editing checklist: subject-verb agreement, tense consistency, article use with countable and uncountable nouns, preposition collocation, and spelling of homophones.

Referencing conventions require paraphrasing and in-text citation of sources; verbatim copying without quotation marks and citation is plagiarism.