English 30-2 Diploma common mistakes
English 30-2 Diploma · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Spends most of the personal-response essay summarising or retelling the source text (plotting the poem's story, describing what the narrator did in order) with only a sentence or two of the writer's own reaction at the end.
Under exam pressure the source text is the most concrete thing on the page, so students 'use' it by recounting it, believing that demonstrating comprehension equals responding. Many were also rewarded in earlier grades for comprehension-style book reports.
What to do instead
Before writing, draft a one-sentence position ('This text argues that grief is a form of loyalty, and my own experience with ___ confirms and complicates this'). Allow at most one short clause of source summary in the whole essay; every other reference to the text must be a quotation or a specific idea that is immediately followed by the writer's own explanation or example.
Builds the essay around a vague controlling idea such as 'This text shows that life is hard and we all need to keep going,' then repeats variations of that sentence in every paragraph.
Students mistake a topic or a cliché for a thesis. Broad statements feel safe because they cannot be 'wrong', and students do not realise that a thesis must be arguable and specific enough to be supported.
What to do instead
Apply the 'so what / because' test: state the idea, then add 'because ___' twice. If both additions are needed to make the claim precise, that final sentence is the thesis. Revise any thesis containing 'life', 'society', 'journey' or 'everyone' unless it is paired with a specific, contestable claim about the text.
Supports the thesis with generalities - 'I have experienced hardship too', 'everyone has lost someone' - passing quickly over any concrete personal or textual detail, so body paragraphs are three or four thin sentences.
Students fear that personal detail is 'off topic' or 'too personal', so they retreat to safe abstractions. Many also plan by listing paragraph topics rather than by choosing the specific moments that will prove the point.
What to do instead
Plan two developed examples (one personal, one textual) and for each write down a specific scene: a place, a moment, a line of dialogue, a sensory detail. Then in the paragraph, narrate the example in four to six sentences and close with an explicit sentence stating how that example proves the thesis.
Ignores the assigned prompt or the visual component, writing about whatever the source text triggered instead of addressing the topic the prompt actually names, and never mentioning the image.
The source text is emotionally engaging and easier to write about than an abstract prompt, so students drift toward it. Some students also skim the prompt once and never return to it.
What to do instead
Underline the key nouns and the directive verb in the prompt and write a short paraphrase in the margin before planning. Deliberately build the image into the essay: one paragraph should name a specific detail from the visual and explain what it adds to or complicates the ideas in the written text.
Writes from the first second to the last with no plan and no editing time, so the essay ends mid-sentence, paragraphs shift topic randomly, and sentence fragments, run-ons and comma splices appear throughout.
Students believe writing more words earns more marks and that planning is wasted exam time. Because they write linearly, they have no structure to fall back on when time runs short.
What to do instead
Commit to a fixed budget: 8–10 minutes planning (thesis, two or three examples, topic-sentence skeleton), 30–35 minutes drafting, 5–7 minutes editing. Use the editing pass to read the essay silently sentence by sentence, checking each sentence has a subject and verb and that each paragraph opens with a sentence stating its point.
Selects the answer that matches a personal opinion, prior knowledge or a real-world fact rather than what the passage actually says.
The topics in the reading selections are familiar and students 'fill in' plausible ideas. Under time pressure, recognition of a familiar idea feels like recognition of textual evidence.
What to do instead
For every answer, return to the passage and point to the words that support it. If the supporting words cannot be found or paraphrased from a specific line, the choice is wrong regardless of how true it is in the wider world.
Answers the opposite of what the question asks - picks the statement that IS true when the stem says EXCEPT or NOT, or overlooks 'best', 'most likely' and 'the main' in the stem.
The stem is read quickly once, and the eye latches onto the content words rather than the qualifier. The true statements in the options then read as 'correct' at a glance.
What to do instead
Circle or underline the directive word in every stem before looking at the options. For EXCEPT/NOT items, mark T or F beside each option and answer the odd one out; for 'best' items, reject any option that is only partly supported.
Chooses a statement that is literally true in the passage but does not answer the question, especially on inference questions where the correct answer is a conclusion rather than a quotation.
Students conflate 'is this in the text?' with 'does this answer the question?' A true detail feels safe, so it is selected without checking what the stem is asking for.
What to do instead
After choosing an option, cover the passage and ask what the option proves about the question asked. If it merely reports a fact the passage states outright on a question asking what is implied or suggested, eliminate it.
On vocabulary-in-context items, picks the most common everyday meaning of the word instead of the meaning it carries in that sentence.
The dominant dictionary sense comes to mind automatically, and the sentence's unusual usage is not re-read carefully enough to override it.
What to do instead
Substitute each option back into the original sentence and read the whole sentence. Only one substitution preserves both the sentence's logic and its tone; the rest will sound slightly absurd or contradict the surrounding lines.
Spends so long on one difficult passage that later questions are answered in seconds or left blank, and never eliminates options on questions that are guesses.
The passages feel equally weighted, so students refuse to move on until a hard question feels solved. The belief that a blank is more honest than a guess also persists.
What to do instead
Set a per-passage time limit, answer the easy questions first within each passage, and return to hard items. On any item that remains uncertain, cross out options that contradict the passage and choose among those remaining - never leave a bubble empty.