Written expression: argumentative essay on a current or cultural topic
The final section asks for an argumentative text of roughly 200–300 words on the topic raised by the reading or on a current cultural issue («¿Sigue teniendo sentido...?», «Reflexione sobre...»). It is marked on adequation to the task, coherence, cohesion, lexical and syntactic richness and correctness; spelling and accent mistakes carry an explicit penalty in the Castilla-La Mancha paper, so reserve two minutes to revise.
Plan before writing
- Take a position in the introduction; a thesis such as «La lectura lenta sigue siendo una forma de resistencia» is far better than «Desde siempre el ser humano ha...».
- One argument per paragraph, with a connector signalling its function: en primer lugar, además, ahora bien, sin embargo, por consiguiente, en definitiva.
- Include a concesión: «Es cierto que la inmediatez facilita el acceso, pero...». This raises the mark more than an extra example.
- Close with a conclusion that reformulates the thesis with a nuance, not a literal repetition.
Register and cohesion
- Standard register, impersonal where possible: «conviene distinguir», «cabe señalar»; avoid «yo creo que» in every paragraph, coloquialisms («un montón», «súper») and series of rhetorical questions.
- Control punctuation: commas around incisos, semicolons between related clauses, colon before an explanation.
- Avoid dequeísmo («pienso de que»), laísmo («la dije»), «habían muchas personas» and anacolutha: if a sentence grows too long, split it.
Worked example
Topic: «¿Es la lectura un acto de resistencia?»
- Tesis: sí, porque impone un tiempo que la economía de la atención considera improductivo.
- Argument 1 (causa-efecto): la lectura profunda exige pausa y silencio, condiciones que el entorno digital penaliza.
- Concesión: es cierto que nunca se leyó tanto ni tan barato; sin embargo, acceso no equivale a comprensión.
- Cierre: resistir no es rechazar la pantalla, sino decidir la velocidad. Each paragraph states one idea and then justifies it, so the examiner can underline the thesis and the connectors at a glance.
Traps
Summarising the exam text instead of arguing; a paragraph with three ideas and no development; no explicit thesis; writing 500 words when 250 are asked; quoting the source text as if it were an argument; leaving the spelling revision undone.