Five Flagged Words in the Debate Notice
Priya is preparing the spoken welcome address and the written notice for the inter-school debate at her school. Her teacher has flagged five items in the draft:
'We are proud to announce that our school will conduct an inter-school debate on 20 September. A large amount of students from 12 schools will participate. The judges will comprise of three retired professors. We request the participants to listen the instructions carefully and to practise their speeches before the event. Kindly intimate your confirmation by 15 September. Refreshments will be provided for all the participants.'
The teacher's margin notes read: conduct? amount? comprise of? listen? intimate? Priya must decide which flagged items are errors, which are matters of register, and which are correct. She has a list of possible replacements: host, number of, comprise, listen to, inform, confirm. She may not use a replacement more than once and must keep every fact unchanged.
1. Decide which flagged items are errors, which are register choices, and which are correct. Give the replacement where one is needed.
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- amount → number of. Error. 'Students' is countable; use 'a large number of students'. 'Amount' is for uncountable quantities such as water or time.
- comprise of → comprise. Error. 'Comprise' is transitive: 'The judges will comprise three retired professors.' Alternatively, 'will consist of three retired professors'.
- listen → listen to. Error. 'Listen' is intransitive and needs 'to' before its object: 'listen to the instructions'.
- intimate → register choice. Not a grammatical error, but 'intimate' belongs to legal and bureaucratic writing; for a school notice, 'inform' or 'confirm' is clearer. It can also be misread as 'private/personal'.
- conduct → acceptable. 'Conduct a debate' is a normal collocation; 'host' is also acceptable and slightly more natural for an event. This is a style preference, not an error.
- practise → correct. In British English, 'practise' is the verb and 'practice' the noun. Do not change it. This is the trap item.
2. Rewrite 'Kindly intimate your confirmation by 15 September' for the notice, and justify your choice in terms of audience and register.
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Revision: 'Please confirm your participation by 15 September.'
Justification: the audience is school students, teachers and visiting schools, not lawyers. 'Intimate' sounds like a legal notice; it is also ambiguous to younger readers. 'Confirm your participation' is specific: it tells the reader exactly what to send. 'Please' is polite without being servile, and the date remains exact.
The original is not grammatically wrong, so the revision should be justified as clarity and register, not as error correction. In an exam, a mechanical synonym swap without a reason earns less than a short, precise revision with a stated audience-based reason.
3. Rewrite the whole announcement in 45-55 words, keeping all facts and using your corrected vocabulary.
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Model announcement (53 words):
'We are proud to announce that our school will host an inter-school debate on 20 September. Students from 12 schools will take part. Three retired professors will comprise the judging panel. Participants should listen to the instructions carefully and practise their speeches. Please confirm your participation by 15 September. Refreshments will be provided.'
Facts retained: date, 12 schools, three retired professors as judges, confirmation deadline, refreshments. Changes made: 'conduct' to 'host' for natural collocation; 'amount' to the countable construction; 'comprise of' to 'comprise'; 'listen' to 'listen to'; 'intimate' to 'confirm'. 'Practise' is deliberately kept because it is the correct British verb form. The 45-55 word limit forces the writer to drop the spoken-address flourishes and keep only notice information.