MB ELA 40S common mistakes
MB ELA 40S · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Writing a personal-response or text-creation piece that summarizes the prompt or narrates events without establishing a controlling idea, so the piece reads as a flat recounting rather than a shaped composition.
Under time pressure, candidates default to chronological narration because it feels safe and requires no planning; they mistake 'having a topic' for 'having a thesis or focus' and never decide what the piece is really about.
What to do instead
Before drafting, write one sentence stating the central impression or idea the piece must leave with the reader, then list two or three scenes or details that build toward it. Cut any detail that does not serve that sentence. Check the finished draft against the sentence to confirm the focus is visible in the opening and closing paragraphs.
Producing an analytical response that retells the plot or paraphrases the passage instead of making an interpretive claim supported by textual evidence.
Retelling is cognitively easier and gives a false sense of completion; candidates also fear that an interpretation could be 'wrong', so they retreat to summary, which is harder to fault.
What to do instead
Draft a thesis that states an arguable interpretation (what the text suggests, not what happens), then for each body paragraph pair a quoted or closely referenced detail with an explanation of how that detail supports the thesis. If a paragraph could be replaced by 'and then...', it is summary and must be revised.
Citing quotations or details without explaining how they support the claim, leaving evidence to 'speak for itself'.
Candidates believe the connection is obvious once the quote is included, and they run short of time so they spend words on more quotations rather than on analysis.
What to do instead
Use a two-part evidence routine: after each quotation, write at least two sentences that name what the wording, image, or structure reveals and why that matters to the thesis. Aim for more explanation than quotation in every body paragraph.
Reading the prompt or task instructions once and then answering a slightly different question, missing a required element such as a specified audience, format, length, or number of texts to discuss.
Anxiety to start writing, plus the assumption that all prompts follow a familiar pattern, leads candidates to skim and pattern-match rather than parse the exact wording.
What to do instead
Underline every operative verb and constraint in the prompt, then rewrite the task in one sentence in your own words before planning. Before submitting, tick off each underlined requirement against the draft to confirm nothing was omitted.
Ignoring or misreading the structure of a text (paragraph breaks, shifts in tense, stanza divisions, stage directions, section headings) and treating the whole piece as a single undifferentiated block.
Candidates read for plot or gist and skip structural signals, and they have not practised asking why a writer chose to break or order the text in a particular way.
What to do instead
On a first read, annotate the text's architecture: mark where the setting, speaker, tone, or time changes and label each section in the margin. Then ask what each shift accomplishes and use at least one structural observation as evidence in the response.
Using literary or rhetorical terminology as decoration, naming a device without analysing its effect, or misidentifying devices (for example, labelling any comparison a metaphor or any repetition anaphora).
Candidates have memorized labels and believe naming them earns credit; they have not internalized the distinction between identifying a device and explaining its function in context.
What to do instead
Adopt a fixed three-step sentence pattern: name the device, quote the exact words, then state what it makes the reader see, feel, or conclude and how that advances the text's meaning. If the effect cannot be stated specifically, drop the device and analyse the wording instead.
Writing sentences that are grammatically tangled, comma-spliced, or fragmentary, and misusing punctuation such as semicolons and colons, so meaning becomes unclear.
Candidates compose complex sentences while drafting under time pressure and do not reread for sentence boundaries; they also apply punctuation rules by feel rather than by structure.
What to do instead
Reserve the final minutes for a sentence-boundary pass: read each sentence aloud in your head and confirm it has one independent clause unless deliberately joined. Test every semicolon by asking whether both sides could stand alone, and test every colon by confirming a list, explanation, or quotation follows.
Shifting tense, person, or register unpredictably within a response, such as moving from formal third-person analysis into first-person opinion or from past to present tense when discussing a text.
Conversational habits leak into formal writing, and candidates are unsure which convention applies to literary analysis, so they alternate between them without noticing.
What to do instead
Decide the convention before drafting: use the literary present when discussing events in a text and keep analytical claims in consistent third person unless the prompt invites personal response. During revision, circle every verb and pronoun and correct any that breaks the chosen pattern.
Producing an introduction that is disproportionately long and a conclusion that merely restates it word for word, leaving too little space for developed body paragraphs or ending without a new implication.
Candidates front-load effort while confidence is high, run out of time and energy, and have been taught that a conclusion 'restates the thesis', which they interpret as repetition.
What to do instead
Cap the introduction at a brief context plus thesis, spend the bulk of the word count on two or three developed body paragraphs, and end by extending the thesis to a larger implication, tension, or question rather than repeating it. Draft the body first if time is tight and add the framing afterward.
Managing time poorly: spending too long on reading and planning or on one section, then rushing or leaving blank the final section or the editing stage.
Candidates do not know the mark weighting of each section, lose track of time while absorbed in a difficult text, and treat editing as optional rather than as part of the task.
What to do instead
At the start, convert the total time into per-section budgets proportional to the marks and write the clock times on the page. Enforce a hard stop at each budget, leave a fixed block at the end for proofreading, and if a section stalls, write a brief plan and move on rather than abandoning the final task entirely.