A letter to the editor that sounds like a text message
Marcus is 55 minutes into Paper 2 and has chosen Part B under the elective "Learning English through Social Issues". The task asks for a 400-word letter to the editor of a Hong Kong newspaper arguing that the city's single-use plastics ban should be extended to restaurants. He has written about 380 words and has 25 minutes left - enough, he thinks, to add one more paragraph. His opening reads: "Hey, so I was, like, totally shocked when I read that Hong Kong throws away thousands of tonnes of food waste a day - that's insane! I mean, who isn't angry about this? We all are, right?" His third paragraph runs to 180 words and drifts from the plastics ban to recycling bins to his aunt's restaurant. He has no counterargument and no closing that reads like a letter. He wants to add a 90-word paragraph on marine plastic, and he is also considering deleting the sentence "So, what are you waiting for, government?"
1. Diagnose the opening paragraph on register and on relevance, then rewrite it in about 45 words.
Read the worked answer
Register problems
- Hey, so - conversational opener; a letter to the editor is read by strangers and must sound public.
- like, totally - filler and intensifier from speech.
- that's insane! - exclamation standing in for an argument.
- I mean, who isn't angry about this? We all are, right? - a rhetorical question that demands agreement instead of offering a reason. It also spends about 15 words saying nothing.
Relevance problem
Even in perfect English, the statistic does not support his case. He is arguing about single-use plastics; a figure about food waste is a different problem, and a marker reading for "relevant content" will notice the mismatch. The evidence has to be about plastics, or the paragraph has to be rewritten around a point the figure can actually prove.
Rewrite
Hong Kong discards an estimated 2,300 tonnes of food waste daily. Readers hardly need convincing that waste is a problem; the question is whether extending the plastics ban to restaurants is the right response. It is.
Why this works better
The outrage survives as a position rather than as noise. The rhetorical question becomes a claim that sets up an argument, and the paragraph now points forward to the body instead of asking the reader to agree before any evidence has been given. As a bonus, "Readers hardly need convincing" is a legitimate letter-to-the-editor move because it addresses a readership rather than a friend.
2. With 25 minutes and 380 words written against a 400-word target, how should Marcus spend the time? Justify the priorities.
Read the worked answer
What to do with the word count
The 90-word marine-plastic paragraph should be dropped. It is a new topic, it adds relevance risk rather than content, and it consumes 90 of the roughly 20 words of headroom he has. Overshooting by 70 words is not fatal, but the words would buy nothing the task rewards.
The 180-word third paragraph should be cut to about 70. Choose one idea - recycling bins at restaurant entrances - and delete the aunt's restaurant, which is an anecdote, not an argument. That frees 110 words, which is where the counterargument (next task) goes. The net word count stays near 380–400.
"So, what are you waiting for, government?" should be deleted. It is not a register problem so much as a genre problem: a letter to the editor argues to a readership and to a decision-maker indirectly; it does not issue a challenge in the imperative.
Why the remaining time goes to proofreading, not writing
With roughly 12 minutes after editing, the highest-value work is mechanical accuracy: subject–verb agreement, articles before singular countable nouns, plural -s, and consistent tense. At this level, a page of fluent argument still loses marks for errors that a single read-through would catch - and errors are cheap to fix now and impossible to fix after time is called. The marker reads the whole script for accuracy; a rushed extra paragraph cannot repair a page of them.
3. Does the letter need a counterargument at 400 words? Advise Marcus, referring to how the paper is marked.
Read the worked answer
Yes, but a short one.
The task is an argument, not a description. A letter to the editor that only lists reasons reads as one-sided and, more importantly, never shows the writer weighing anything. Content descriptors reward developed ideas; organisation descriptors reward a clear line of reasoning. A concession-and-rebuttal does both at once, and it is the cheapest way to demonstrate higher-order thinking in a short text.
The shape it should take (roughly 50–60 words, not a 120-word essay)
- Concede the real objection: small restaurants already operate on thin margins and would absorb the cost of switching packaging.
- Rebut with a mechanism: a phased start for businesses below a certain size, or a subsidy in year one, addresses the objection without abandoning the policy.
- Return to the thesis in a sentence.
Why not simply add a second set of reasons?
At 400 words, a fourth reason adds little that the third did not already establish, and it invites repetition - a common reason candidates stall at the middle bands. One well-chosen concession signals a writer who can see the other side's strongest point and answer it, which is exactly what "developed argument" means. The test Marcus should apply: if he deleted this paragraph, would the reader's likely objection go unanswered? If yes, it stays; if no, it is filler.