Examinations - Part 2

So let’s move on to the second half of this essay. Moving into body paragraph to looking at the disadvantages. Now it’s pretty clear that there is a sense of contrast between body paragraph one and body paragraph two. We can emphasize that contrast by starting with an appropriate cohesive device. You could say on the other hand you could say however I’m going to use the expression nevertheless. But the important thing here is to try to create a sense of transition between the first paragraph the first body paragraph and the second body paragraph. You should try to create a sense of transition between all of the paragraphs. It’s important not just to transition smoothly between sentences but also over the essay as a whole. And that means between paragraphs as well. And we do that here. We’ve talked about all this good stuff we say Never the less. We also need to consider some of the bad stuff as well. That’s all about coherence and cohesion and you can learn more about that particularly in the task to cause and was never the less in a lecture on cohesive devices. That’s me on nevertheless. And I want to say here is that there are some problems as well problems about what again we want to reference the task itself. So we will do that with Gerald assessing students via examinations does presents some problems. An interesting thing I’ve done here is to use Hillary do the verb do in this form does. We would do this when we want to emphasize a particular verb particularly when we want to emphasize the contrast. You can imagine saying it’s something like. Here is all the good stuff. Firstly secondly finally amazing all this good stuff however we do need to consider some problems as well not we need to consider. But we do need to. It just helps to emphasise that there’s a strong sense of contrast here to emphasize the verb that follows it as well. So nevertheless assessing students via examinations does present some problems. You can almost hear it in your inner voice in your head. OK. Starting with an example which is actually our main point. The point here is that again we’re using an appropriate cohesive device for instance for example to illustrate with for instance here. Now down in my plan I can see pressure hommes performance brightest students perform poorly. I want to bring in both of those ideas into this second sentence. We want to make the point that students whoever they are can be affected by pressure and then in the third sentence we’ll talk about exams and their influence there. So will say something like Some students are extremely not going to use the word bright because they want to use it later. So it was to say something like intelligent and creative. Some students are extremely intelligent and creative. But but what. But when put under pressure lovely collocation here put under pressure. So when put under pressure and imagine you got this where and when they are put under pressure but you don’t actually need that you can omit that from the sentence. But when put under pressure their minds their minds. Here’s another really nice collocation. Their minds can go blank which is what happens when it feels like your brain is just emptied of content and knowledge when you’re looking at your exam paper and the task in front of you and you just can’t think of anything. That’s what happens when your mind goes blank and that happens a lot when people are under pressure. Now considering that exams are a very high pressure situations in fact that’s a perfect way to start the next sentence considering that exams are just switch it up a little bit in the order or situations of intensely because I use extremely here intensely high pressure. That’s a real problem isn’t it. Because it’s going to cause a lot of students and scare black. We use a really nice expression and it is no wonder that’s which is like saying it is not surprising that so considering exams or situations of intensely high pressure it is no wonder that even the. And here we go down here the brightest of students sometimes perform poorly. Notice that I’m avoiding generalizations to you out here we’ve got some students not all students their minds can go blank. They don’t always go blank and even the brightest students sometimes don’t always perform poorly. OK let’s move on into the fourth sentence. We’re looking at another problem another example of a problem. So we use the word another. Another significant disadvantage and it’s really easy for me to think of synonyms for crucial crucial up here. Now we’re using significant and in the vocabulary exercise that you have a look at after this lecture you’ll see that I’ve got a little trick for you that you can use to quickly think of synonyms in this regard as well. So another significant advantage of this system is that this approach this system would be aware of paraphrasing of this system is easy here is the narrow range of information which students are tested on. So you are tested on information when you are doing an exam. Now that is very different to continued assessment in this paragraph so far we haven’t provided any reference to continue the assessment. There is not that sense of context that we had earlier. They improved this paragraph. So we’re going to add it here and a way of again this idea of a contrast here alternative we can open it with the word unlike. But then we’ll follow it with more information about exams. So unlike with continual assessment. So if you start with like. And then the noun of choice you do not look at an example of that thing you look you continue to look it’s an example of the previous thing. So in this case exams. So unlike with unlike the keys in the word that unlike unlike with continual assessment the see the small window of time and I say collocation the small window of time in tests and exams limits say limits how many questions can be asked. And that’s not really full testing is it. So we can say thus so therefore. So this follows that it follows that they are not testing students knowledge. In fact the worst of all there. OK. So unlike with continual assessments which does have a large window of time unlike with continuo assessment the small window of time in Tests limits how many questions can be asked. Thus not testing students knowledge in full. We hear him say something like thus failing to test students knowledge in full so we can avoid the negation. OK we provide that context at the end there as well. So we’ve fulfilled that requirement. Let’s have a look at the word count. We’re at two to eight. That’s a great number to finish on when it comes to the second paragraph. It means we don’t have to worry about creating a lengthy conclusion but it also means that we’ve saved plenty of time as the word can isn’t so high when it comes to the conclusion. I always always recommend in conclusion to start things off every single essay in this course. Each conclusion will start in the same way. In conclusion there really the IRS at least there really is no need to memorize anything else. You can do that problem doing so. Then in conclusion is all that you need when it comes to conclusion. In conclusion now the best thing here is to finish by demonstrating your quality and range of grammar. And you can do that by finishing the essay with a single sentence. A single complex sentence. So everything that we have in this conclusion will be formed of a single sentence and to have a complex sentence. You need something called a subordinating conjunction which will link a dependent clause with an independent course. If that sounds a bit like jibberish you to no idea. And please check out the lecturer in the task to course on complex sentences which is in the grammar section. Now subordinating conjunction is a word like but it creates a sense of contrast where we can link through contrast a dependent clause with an independent clause. We’re going to start with the dependent clause although formal examinations for what we’re looking at here. Well there are formal examinations of beneficial. How are they beneficial for. How are they beneficial. This is where we summarize the content in terms of let’s summarize but paraphrase at the same time we’ve got cheating leave room for cheating let’s say something like cutting out some cheese. And what’s the other advantage that we talked about it was about time efficiency time efficient. So let’s say improving efficiency. That’s the end of the dependent clause. When you reach the end of the dependent clause you add a comma. Then you move to the independent clause. And this is where you look at a summary of the second paragraph. We can say something like this. It is important to consider. So here all these amazing things but it is also important to consider that they also because I didn’t write also here is important to consider that they also let’s paraphrase again what have we got here with say something like harm some model some students concentration. Notice where the apostrophe is here I’m not looking saying this is plural plural so that when we have a possessive plural the apostrophe comes after the plural as some students concentration. And what was the other point. It was about the range of information and not testing students knowledge in full. So let’s go something like and are again avoid the generalization was they are arguably not in here. We’ve got an opportunity to make one last comparison. We can also reference continual assessment as well by using a negative comp.. Again this is actually something you can learn a bit about in my task one course about comparatives very useful when talking about comparative graphs. Now to make negative comparative we use not just as an adjective Plus as followed by what you’re comparing something with. So we just now need to find an appropriate adjective full. No that doesn’t work. Not as thought doesn’t make sense. It works here but it certainly doesn’t work here. I wonder if you can work out what I’m going to write to Thor. Thara thorough. And be careful with the spelling of this word. A lot of people mistake it with the word through thought things like this. Also notice that pronunciation is very different to those words as well. Thara not as thorough as continue assessments. You can look at the work around here and we can see a counter to 6:5 really nice count only 15 words over plenty of time to go back and check for errors. I just want to make one more comment about that conclusion. I want you to notice how the conclusion doesn’t just say although there are some good points to formal examinations. There are also some good some bad points as well. It doesn’t just say Good points bad points. Advantages disadvantages. It actually summarizes the content as well. It says what those advantages and disadvantages that we talked about actually are and it attempts to paraphrase at the same time. If you are struggling with time of course you may need to be quite selective with your language. You may need to just use the same language again but it’s really important for me. I believe really to kind of push for that back nine in terms of task response to actually summarize the content. Show your ability to remind the reader of the content that they have read and the arguments that you have made. OK. So before we close just a quick review on this first lecture here what we’ve looked at is a discussion essay we’ve looked at the basic structure of an essay that involves a discussion. So we want to look at both sides of requirements look at both sides. We want to look at more than one advantage more than one disadvantage because that’s part of the art requirements as well. So you can stop the vantages move to the disadvantages you can do it the other way round as well. It really doesn’t matter. And we’ve also looked at Jim really how to build a body paragraph when looking at an essay like this. So you make a point you develop the point with a supporting point with an example with a result with an alternative. Whatever the case don’t just make points and leave them. You need to develop your ideas. And this lecture that’s been designed in a way to show you how you can do that. Now after this lecture you will see that there is a document for you to download and this document is a list of vocabulary exercises. This list of vocabulary exercises is just sentences that have been taken from this essay which contain high scoring language and the sentences and stretches of language have a missing word and it is your job to identify the missing word from what you can remember from the essay. I like I say that I have specifically selected this language because I think it’s important language for you to learn. It’s a mixture of language related to the topics or topic related vocabulary. It’s also some useful cohesive language so some cohesive devices might appear in there and also language that can be useful in many different types of essays as well so just generally useful academic vocabulary. There is an exercise like this at the end of every single essay in this course. So overall you’re looking at 100 different exercises. By the time you finish but of course if you have any questions about those exercises do get in touch. I hope you found this essay useful and I will see in the next lecture.