A 68-Word Notice Against a 50-Word Limit
You are the Secretary of the Science Club, ZP High School, Eluru. The task is a notice for the school notice board, in about 50 words, informing students of Classes 9 and 10 about a science exhibition. Five details must appear: date 14 August; venue, school auditorium; time 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.; registration with the class teacher by 10 August; models submitted to the Secretary by 12 August.
Sana submits:
NOTICE Science Exhibition Our Science Club is organising a science exhibition. It will be held on 14 August in the school auditorium from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Students of Classes 9 and 10 who wish to take part must register with their class teacher before 10 August. Models should be submitted to the Secretary by 12 August. Come one and all and make it a grand success! Sana, Secretary
The body is 68 words. The notice is not boxed and carries no date line. The scheme is: format 1, content 2, expression 1, word limit 1 - with no further breakdown of the format mark.
1. Award the five marks and justify each decision, including the format mark, which the scheme leaves undefined.
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Format (1) - award ½. The conventional notice has four elements: the word NOTICE, a heading/title, a date line, and the sender's name with designation, all enclosed in a box. Sana has two of the four (NOTICE, heading) plus the name and designation, but no date line and no box. A full mark would be generous and a zero harsh, since the notice is immediately recognisable and correctly signed. Half is the defensible middle, and the important thing is that the examiner applies the same rule to every script.
Content (2) - award 2. All five required details are present and accurate: date, venue, time, registration deadline and model-submission deadline. Nothing is invented and nothing is missing.
Expression (1) - award 1. The sentences are clear, formal and correctly punctuated; 'It will be held on…' is the right impersonal register for a notice. The lapse is the closing line, which belongs to a different genre.
Word limit (1) - award 0. 68 words against 'about 50' is a 36% overshoot. 'About' usually tolerates roughly ±10%, so 45–55; 68 is well outside.
Total: 3½ out of 5. Note where the marks were lost: a full mark for the word limit and half for format is 1½ marks spent on presentation, not on English. That is the lesson for Sana - the two cheapest marks on the question are the two she dropped.
2. Rewrite the notice to about 50 words without losing any of the five details, and explain each cut you made.
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NOTICE Science Exhibition The Science Club will hold a science exhibition on 14 August in the school auditorium, 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Students of Classes 9 and 10 may register with their class teacher by 10 August; models must reach the Secretary by 12 August. Sana, Secretary - 20 July
The body is 44 words; with the heading, signature and date line the notice is still comfortably inside 50.
Cuts and why each is safe:
- 'Our Science Club is organising' → 'The Science Club will hold' - saves three words and removes 'our', which a notice board does not need.
- 'It will be held on 14 August in the school auditorium from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.' → folded into one prepositional string - one sentence instead of two clauses, no detail lost.
- 'who wish to take part must register' → 'may register' - six words saved; the deadline already carries the obligation.
- 'Come one and all and make it a grand success!' deleted - twelve words, no information, and it contradicts the Class 9–10 restriction.
- 'should be submitted to' → 'must reach' - shorter and slightly firmer.
Nothing in the five required details was touched. That is the test of a good trim: every cut comes from framing language, none from content.
3. Explain why the closing line is a register error and not merely a style preference - and identify the second, non-stylistic problem with it.
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A notice is an impersonal, one-way information sheet pinned to a board for readers who arrive at unknown times. That setting dictates its grammar: third person, no direct address, no exclamation, no persuasion - the reader has not been buttonholed, and the writer is not present to persuade. 'Come one and all and make it a grand success!' breaks all three conventions at once: it addresses a crowd ('come'), it emotes ('grand success!'), and it uses an exclamation mark - a device a notice essentially never needs. A circular or an invitation may do this; a notice may not.
But the more serious problem is not stylistic. The line contradicts the information above it. The notice restricts the exhibition to Classes 9 and 10 and requires registration by 10 August; 'come one and all' invites the entire school, including students who cannot register in time. A reader who takes the last line at face value will arrive unregistered and be turned away. That is a content fault, and under a scheme that rewards accuracy it is worth more than the register point.
Classroom rule: in a notice, any sentence that is not information should be deleted. The deletion test is quick - cover the sentence and ask whether the reader knows less. If the answer is no, the sentence goes.