Cutting an overlong opinion article under time pressure
The PAU writing task says: 'Your school magazine has asked for an opinion article: Should mobile phones be banned during break time? Write 150–180 words. Give reasons and examples.' Lucía's draft is 231 words long, has no title and is a single paragraph. It begins: 'So, I think phones should not be banned, because a lot of students use them to relax. U can also call your parents if u need something.' She includes 'According to a study I read, 80% of students feel stressed without their phones' but gives no source. She ends: 'So, yeah, that's my opinion.' Her grammar is generally accurate, but she uses contractions, 'a lot of', and vague phrases. She has 25 minutes left in the exam. She asks whether she should rewrite the whole text or make targeted changes.
1. Prioritise three changes Lucía should make in 25 minutes, and justify the order.
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Priority 1: cut to 150–180 words. At 231 words she is 51 words over the maximum. PAU tasks usually penalise significant under/over-length, and an overlong text also increases error exposure. She should delete repetition and the unsourced statistic rather than rewrite every sentence.
Priority 2: repair register and direct address. 'U', 'yeah' and 'So, I think' belong to chat, not a school-magazine article. Replace with 'you', a clear opening thesis and a formal closing. This is high-value because register is explicitly assessed.
Priority 3: add a title and paragraph divisions. One block of text hides her argument. A title plus two or three short paragraphs (position, reason/example, conclusion) makes coherence visible to the examiner.
Rewriting the whole text is too risky with 25 minutes left. Targeted surgery preserves accurate sentences and focuses effort on the criteria that carry marks.
2. Rewrite her first two sentences as a formal opening of 30–40 words that keeps her position.
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Model opening (34 words): 'In my view, mobile phones should not be banned during break time. Many students use them to relax, and they allow pupils to contact their parents quickly if something goes wrong.'
Why this works:
- 'In my view' replaces 'So, I think' and signals an opinion article without sounding conversational.
- 'Many students' replaces 'a lot of students', which is acceptable in speech but vague in formal writing.
- 'U can also call your parents' becomes 'they allow pupils to contact their parents', removing the text-message spelling and the switch between 'you' and 'students'.
- The position is unchanged, so she does not need to rethink her argument; she only changes the register.
She can then add one short example in the next paragraph and reserve the final two lines for a conclusion.
3. How should she handle the 80% statistic under exam conditions?
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She should not present an unverifiable study as fact. In an exam room she cannot check the source, and inventing 'a study I read' weakens credibility. Two safe options:
- Delete it and replace it with a general, defensible observation: 'Many students say they feel anxious when they cannot check their phones.' This makes no numerical claim.
- Hedge it explicitly if she wants to keep the idea: 'Some reports suggest that a large number of students feel stressed without their phones.' This avoids a precise percentage and does not pretend to cite a source.
The 80% figure also costs words she needs to cut. Removing it solves a credibility problem and a length problem at once, which is exactly the kind of double-purpose edit worth making under time pressure.