Written production: the composition that carries the most weight
The composition is the single heaviest-weighted task in the La Rioja PAU English paper. You normally choose between two prompts linked to the reading topic: an opinion or for-and-against essay, an article, a formal email or a review. The length is fixed (commonly 120-150 words) and the rubric scores four things: task achievement, organisation and cohesion, range, and accuracy. A short, well-organised, accurate text beats a long ambitious one full of agreement errors.
What the rubric rewards
- Task achievement: answer the exact prompt. If it says 'discuss both views and give your opinion', a text that only gives one view is capped low however good the English.
- Organisation: three or four paragraphs with a clear job each - thesis, two developed arguments, closing move (or a formal sign-off in an email).
- Cohesion: linkers that carry meaning - whereas, as a result, admittedly, even so, precisely because - not 'Moreover' repeated three times.
- Range: at least one conditional, one passive, one relative clause and one modal of speculation, used naturally.
- Accuracy: subject-verb agreement, articles, tense consistency and spelling. These are the cheapest marks in the paper.
A twenty-minute plan
Three minutes decoding the prompt, choosing a side and jotting three ideas plus two linkers. Three minutes ordering the paragraphs. Twelve minutes writing. Two minutes checking verb endings, plurals, articles, contractions and the word count.
Worked example
Prompt: 'Some people believe school uniforms should be abolished. Write an opinion essay of 120-150 words.'
Outline: (1) position - keep uniforms but redesign them; (2) argument - they reduce visible inequality; (3) concession plus rebuttal - restrictive, but that is a matter of design, not principle; (4) closing sentence.
Upgrade in action. Draft sentence: 'It is very important that students feel equal.' Revision: 'What matters most is that no student is priced out of the playground.' The reasoning: the draft relies on a vague intensifier (very important) that the rubric treats as basic; the revision names the specific harm, uses a nominal clause as subject and gives the examiner lexis to reward. Do this to two or three sentences per text, not all of them - over-writing produces errors.
Traps that cost marks
- Memorised paragraphs. Markers recognise them, and they almost never fit the prompt, so task achievement collapses.
- Overshooting the word limit. Extra sentences bring extra slips and, in most years, an explicit penalty.
- Register breaks: contractions, exclamation marks or 'Hi' inside a formal email; or 'Dear Sir/Madam' followed by slang.
- Spanish calques: actual for 'current', assist for 'attend', I have 18 years, the most of people, in my opinion of course.
- Writing about the reading text instead of the prompt topic. Reusing its vocabulary is fine; summarising it is not.