Writing Under the Word Limit
In the external written examination, students must write a German text of 120-150 words in response to a prompt: 'Write an email to a German exchange partner inviting them to visit and describing two activities you could do together.' A student, Leah, writes 175 words. Her draft includes a long opening about her family, two activities (a bike ride and a visit to a market), and a closing paragraph apologising for her German. Her teacher says the content is good but the response does not meet the task requirements.
1. Identify the problems with Leah's response against the task and the word limit.
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Three issues. First, length: 175 words exceeds the 120-150 limit, and examiners may stop crediting content beyond the limit or penalise task achievement, so she must cut about 25-55 words. Second, relevance: the long family opening and the apology for her German are not required by the prompt, which asks for an invitation and two activities. Off-task material wastes words and weakens task achievement. Third, the prompt asks for two activities, which she includes, but she should ensure each activity is developed with a reason or detail (when, where, why) rather than just named. The fix is to cut the family paragraph and the apology, keep a brief greeting and invitation, develop the two activities, and close with a clear request for a reply, landing within 120-150 words.
2. Show how Leah could restructure the email to meet the limit while keeping the required content.
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Suggested structure: (1) Greeting and invitation, 1-2 sentences (e.g. 'Liebe/r ..., ich möchte dich gern zu Besuch einladen.'). (2) Activity one with a detail, 2-3 sentences (bike ride: where, when, why fun). (3) Activity two with a detail, 2-3 sentences (market: what to see, food, day). (4) Closing request, 1-2 sentences ('Schreib mir bald, ob du kommen kannst.'). This keeps the two required activities, removes off-task family and apology content, and should total roughly 120-140 words. She should count words after drafting and trim adjectives or repeated phrases if she overshoots, rather than deleting a whole activity.
3. Leah worries that cutting words will reduce her marks for range. Reassure her with reasoning.
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Range is shown by the variety of structures and vocabulary used, not by total length. A tight 130-word email can include a subordinate clause, a modal verb, a perfect-tense sentence and varied vocabulary, which is what earns range marks. Padding with off-task family description or an apology adds words but little variety and risks task-achievement penalties for going over the limit. Cutting filler and reinvesting a few words into a well-developed activity actually increases the chance of showing range within the limit.