BSEH SS English Special common mistakes
BSEH SS English Special · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Answering comprehension questions by lifting whole sentences from the passage without trimming or paraphrasing, so the answer is longer than the mark allocation allows and buries the actual point.
Candidates are trained to 'find the answer in the passage' and equate copying with correctness; under time pressure, lifting feels safer than composing, and the habit is rarely corrected because lifted answers often contain the right idea.
What to do instead
Practise a two-step drill: underline the source phrase, then rewrite it in your own words in one sentence of 10–15 words. Check every comprehension answer against the mark value - a 2-mark question gets roughly two distinct points, not a paragraph. Do five such rewrites per practice passage and compare with the model answer to see how much of the original wording can be dropped.
Ignoring the instruction verbs in writing tasks - writing a description when asked to argue, or narrating when asked to analyse - and omitting the required format features (headline, salutation, subject line, sign-off).
Candidates read the topic and start writing immediately, treating the verb as decoration. Format conventions for letters, notices, reports, and articles are often memorised once and never re-checked under exam pressure.
What to do instead
Before writing, circle the instruction verb and list the format elements in the margin as a checklist (e.g. letter: sender address, date, receiver, salutation, body, closing, signature). Spend 60–90 seconds on this plan; it costs less time than it saves. Build a one-page format sheet per text type and rehearse it until the checklist is automatic.
Confusing tense and aspect choices in gap-fill and error-correction items - using present perfect where past simple is required, or missing subject–verb agreement inside a long noun phrase.
Candidates match on time words alone ('yesterday = past') rather than on the relationship between the action and a reference point. Long subjects with prepositional phrases hide the head noun, so agreement errors slip past.
What to do instead
For every gap, first identify the time reference and whether the action is completed, ongoing, or connected to now; then check the verb form against that, not against a keyword. For agreement, bracket out prepositional phrases and read the sentence with only the head noun and verb. Do ten targeted items daily and write the rule beside each answer.
Retelling the plot of a prose extract instead of answering the question about character, theme, or narrative technique, so the response contains story summary but no analysis.
Plot is the easiest thing to recall, and candidates equate knowing what happened with understanding the text. Many have read summaries rather than the original, so they have no textual detail to analyse.
What to do instead
Answer in a fixed shape: claim, evidence, explanation. State the point about the character or theme in one sentence, quote or cite a specific moment, then explain how that moment supports the point. Ban yourself from any sentence beginning 'Then...' or 'After that...'. Read the set text itself and keep a log of three quotable moments per chapter with a one-line comment on each.
Writing poetry answers that name a device ('there is a simile') without explaining its effect, and mislabelling devices - calling personification a metaphor or rhyme scheme a rhythm.
Device-spotting is taught as a labelling exercise, and mark schemes that reward identification encourage it. Candidates also lack precise definitions, so labels are applied by guesswork.
What to do instead
Use a three-part frame for every device: name it, quote it, state what it makes the reader see, hear, or feel. Learn definitions with a contrast pair - simile versus metaphor, alliteration versus assonance, rhyme versus rhythm - and test yourself by sorting ten short quotations into the correct categories before writing about effect.
Treating drama answers as novel answers - describing events and characters but ignoring staging, stage directions, dramatic irony, soliloquy, and what the audience knows that the character does not.
Drama is read as text on the page, and the performance dimension is invisible unless taught. Candidates also miss the gap between a character's speech and the audience's understanding, which is where most dramatic irony marks sit.
What to do instead
Annotate the set play in two colours: one for what is said, one for what is staged (entrances, exits, asides, silences, props). For each key scene, write one line on what the audience knows and one on what the character knows. Practise answering 'how would this scene affect the audience on stage?' rather than 'what happens in this scene?'.
Answering supplementary reader questions with vague generalities about 'the moral of the story' rather than referring to specific characters, incidents, and turning points from the prescribed text.
Candidates revise the supplementary reader last, often from plot summaries, so they remember the theme but not the detail needed to support it. The moral is the only thing they can state with confidence.
What to do instead
Build a one-page card per chapter: three main characters with one adjective each, two key incidents, one turning point, one theme statement. In answers, always anchor the theme to a named character and a named incident. If you cannot name the incident, you do not yet know the chapter well enough to answer on it.
Producing language-function responses that are grammatically correct but pragmatically wrong - replying to an invitation with a bare 'No', giving directions with no reference point, or using informal register in a formal complaint.
Candidates focus on grammar accuracy and neglect appropriateness: who is speaking, to whom, and for what purpose. Classroom practice often drills isolated sentences without a context.
What to do instead
For every function task, note three things first: relationship (formal or informal), purpose (invite, refuse, apologise, request), and expected response structure (e.g. refusal = acknowledge + reason + alternative). Practise converting one message across three registers and check that politeness markers, modals, and softeners change accordingly.
Running out of time because the paper is attempted strictly in order, with over-long answers to early short-answer questions and the long writing task left underdeveloped or unfinished.
Candidates do not know the mark-to-minute ratio of the paper and have never practised under timed conditions, so early questions expand to fill available time. Anxiety about the writing task also encourages postponing it.
What to do instead
Compute a minute budget per section from its mark weight before the exam, and rehearse full papers with a timer. Adopt a rule: never spend more than the budgeted minutes on a question; leave a gap and return. If the writing task carries the largest single mark, consider drafting it earlier rather than last.
Leaving answers unedited - spelling and agreement errors in the writing task, and no proofread of comprehension answers for tense consistency with the passage.
Candidates finish with seconds to spare and believe rereading is wasted time; they also read what they intended to write rather than what is on the page, so their own errors are invisible.
What to do instead
Reserve the final five minutes for a fixed proofreading pass in this order: subject–verb agreement, tense consistency, articles and prepositions, spelling of commonly confused pairs, punctuation of direct speech. Read the writing task backwards sentence by sentence to break the intention effect, and confirm every comprehension answer keeps the passage's tense.