Written production: guided composition or opinion essay
The task
The writing question asks for a guided composition or opinion essay of about 150–200 words on a topic related to the reading text or a general social issue. Marks reward task achievement (answering the prompt), organization, range and accuracy. A short text that answers the question precisely beats a longer text full of memorized phrases.
Planning in four moves
- Underline the topic and the instruction: discuss, give your opinion, describe, compare.
- Take a clear position if an opinion is asked. A balanced essay still needs a thesis.
- Build three or four paragraphs: an introduction with the thesis; one body paragraph per reason, each with an example; a conclusion that restates the position without new arguments.
- Reserve two minutes to check verbs, agreement, articles and spelling.
Worked example
Prompt: "Some people believe university education should be free for everyone. Discuss and give your opinion." Weak opening: "Nowadays, education is a very important topic in society." It says nothing about the question. Stronger: "Making university free would widen access, but it would also require higher taxes; in my view, public funding should cover tuition while students contribute to living costs." Reasoning: the thesis is specific, acknowledges the counter-argument and signals the structure. A body paragraph then gives one reason with a concrete example (graduates' higher lifetime earnings justify partial contribution), and the conclusion returns to the thesis without repeating it word for word.
Traps
- Writing about a related topic instead of the prompt.
- Ignoring the word limit: substantially under 150 words usually means underdeveloped content; going far over adds errors.
- No paragraphing, or one-sentence paragraphs.
- Memorized templates that do not fit the question.
- Informal register in an essay: contractions, stuff, a lot of, rhetorical questions.
- Listing opinions without reasons or examples.