Opinion essay: a memorised opener and 118 words
Elena sits the writing task in Albacete: an opinion essay of 150–180 words on 'Should secondary schools make uniforms compulsory?'. The rubric awards 3 points for task achievement (relevant content, clear position, word count), 2 for organisation and cohesion, and 2 for accuracy and range. She has 35 minutes. She has memorised an introduction: 'Since the dawn of time, human beings have debated the question of dress codes, and it has always divided society...' She plans three paragraphs but produces only 118 words, having spent nine minutes copying linkers ('Moreover', 'On the other hand', 'All things considered') into the margin as a checklist. Her essay contains 'kids should not be forced' and 'uniforms are quite good and also bad in some ways'. Her own position appears only in the last line.
1. Using the rubric, predict where Elena's seven marks will be lost and explain why the memorised opener is expensive rather than free.
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Task achievement (3) - likely 1. At 118 words she is under the 150 minimum, and a position that surfaces only in the conclusion is not a 'clear position'. The opener spends roughly 25 words of a 150–180 budget on content the prompt never asked for.
Organisation (2) - likely 1. Three paragraphs are announced, but the linkers were collected as decoration rather than attached to a logical step; cohesion is judged on whether the argument moves, not on how many connectors appear.
Accuracy and range (2) - partial. Kids is too informal for an opinion essay; quite good and also bad in some ways is vague and self-cancelling, leaving the examiner nothing to reward.
Why the opener costs: examiners mark what answers the question, and a recycled introduction is immediately recognisable. It also consumes the words she needs for a reason and an example - the very material that earns task-achievement marks.
2. Write a 20–30-word position sentence she could open with, and explain what makes it survive the rubric.
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Model: 'Although uniforms can reduce morning stress and visible inequality, making them compulsory in secondary school would limit teenagers' self-expression, so each school should decide.' (26 words)
Why it works: it names the exact issue (compulsion in secondary school), concedes one genuine advantage, and states a position in a 'so' clause the rest of the essay can defend. The vocabulary matches the prompt's register - compulsory, self-expression, inequality - rather than kids or quite good. It is short enough to be echoed in the conclusion in different words, which creates cohesion without a formula, and it leaves about 130 words for two reasons and one example.
3. What should the first five minutes produce, and how should she handle the memorised linkers?
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Planning (5 min): a six-line plan - thesis, reason 1 with example, reason 2 with example, counterargument, rebuttal, conclusion stance - plus the word budget (170) written at the top. No full sentences, no copied list of connectors.
Writing (25 min): four paragraphs, one idea each.
Checking (5 min): agreement and plurals, spelling of compulsory / uniform / teenagers, the word count, and one scan for repeated words.
Linkers: select by function, not decoration - However for the counterargument, What is more for the second reason, In my view or To sum up only at the end. A list in the margin is not part of the text and earns nothing; four correctly placed connectors beat ten pasted in. The memorised opener should be dropped outright: it cannot be adapted to this prompt without turning into a different sentence.