Written production II: linguistic range, accuracy and register
This domain covers how the writing is marked as language rather than as content: the range of structures and vocabulary you control, the accuracy with which you deploy them, and whether the register matches the genre you were asked for. A short text with two well-handled complex structures and no basic errors scores better than a long one full of half-controlled ambition.
Range you can plan for
Deliberately place two or three structures you control: a conditional, a relative clause, a passive, a participle clause, or a modal perfect. Vary sentence length - a short sentence after two long ones reads as control. Replace good, bad, thing, a lot of with precise verbs and collocations (cut costs, raise concerns, a marked improvement).
Accuracy checklist (last three minutes)
- Articles: a/an/the and zero article with general plurals and abstract nouns.
- Uncountables that Spanish speakers pluralise: information, advice, research, news, furniture, evidence, progress.
- Agreement: people are; the number of students is versus a number of students are.
- Tense consistency, especially across a narrative.
- Spelling of derived forms: beginning, making, accommodation, development.
- Dependent prepositions and punctuation - no comma splices, correct apostrophes.
Register
- Formal essay: no contractions, no generic you, no kids/stuff, and hedging where a claim is strong (may, tends to, arguably).
- Informal email: contractions, phrasal verbs and direct questions are appropriate - but the grammar still has to be right.
- Never mix: Dear Sir or Madam … it's great! is a register error, not a style choice.
Worked example
Original: Actually, the most of young people prefer to study online because it's more comfortable and you can do it when you want.
Corrections with reasons: Actually → Currently/Nowadays (Spanish actualmente is a false friend; actually means in fact); the most of → most (the most of is a calque); comfortable → convenient (comfort is physical, convenience is practical); it's → it is (no contractions in formal prose); generic you → they, to keep one consistent point of view and avoid addressing the reader in an essay; when you want → whenever they wish.
Traps that cost marks
- Spanish calques: the most of, in the actuality, depend of, married with, explain me, I have 18 years.
- People is, informations, advices.
- Chaining moreover at the start of every sentence.
- Register drift: an informal idiom in the middle of a formal essay, or an over-formal formula in a friendly email.
- Attempting a structure you cannot finish, and losing the whole sentence.