What we read
The writing task for Unit 5 of Skillful is timed response to an exam question. Although this is not how we normally write, it is something that most of us will have to sometimes do. We started preparing for this by looking at the writing skill notes on using sentence variety (Bixby & Scanlon, 2013, p. 53).
The Study Skills page "Strategies for Writing Times Essays" (p. 56) directly addresses some common worries that students might have about timed writing and suggests strategies to deal with them.
We have just done a quick survey to find out what we find most challenging about timed writing.
The Study Skills page "Strategies for Writing Times Essays" (p. 56) directly addresses some common worries that students might have about timed writing and suggests strategies to deal with them.
We have just done a quick survey to find out what we find most challenging about timed writing.
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Bixby and Scanlon's question
Write a comment responding to these questions:
- Have you ever done any timed writing (writing where you were given a time limit to complete)?
How did you feel about it?
- What did you find most challenging about a timed writing task?
- deciding what to write
- organizing ideas
- feeling nervous or stressed
- finishing on time
- expressing your ideas clearly in writing
- not having enough time to revise your work
- using correct spelling and grammar
- Having read Bixby and Scanlon's six suggestions on page 56 ("Consider It" section), what might you do differently next time you do write a timed essay?
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Reference
- Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing, Student's Book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education
I'm not really stressed by timed exams, although when I did my philosophy exams at university and had to write three essays in three hours, i did get sore hand from the intense exercise of writing quickly for so long. My problem was planning time so that finished. This usually meant that I had to leave out material that I wanted to include, but i had a similar problem with my research papers — they tended to go over the word limits, which wasn't always OK with the lecturer.
ReplyDeleteAs I read Bixby and Scanlon's suggestions, I thought that making a brief outline was a good idea. My own habit is to do this in my head, but for longer pieces of work, a graphic version on paper is very helpful.
And it is essential to spend some time planning before you start to write. I think that their suggested break down for a 45 minute assignment is about right:
- plan for 10 minutes = choose a topic, get ideas and decide your thesis statement
- write for 25 minutes, with your plan in mind
- review, revise and correct for 10 minutes.
- Yes, I have. It felt depressed and sometimes reckless when there is time to limit.
ReplyDelete- The first one is deciding what to write. The next one is organizing my ideas. And the last one is expressing my ideas clearly in writing.
- I think I can improve my organization skill. I should plan my ideas on the papers and start to organize that ideas.
- I will gather and organize main points and supporting ideas.
DeleteYes, I have done timed writing in IELTS writing Task which give 20 minutes for task 1 and 40 minutes for task 2. I felt nervous, stress and worried sometimes because I am afraid that I could not finish on time, give a good answer and write correct grammar.
ReplyDeleteThe most challenging about timed writing task is expressing ideas clearly. It is difficult organize many ideas and express ideas clearly in limited time in order to hit the point.
Yes, I have done in an IELTS exam. I feel it is very difficult to find information to write about the task question, especially if it is an unfamiliar topic and I don't have enough resources for that.
ReplyDeleteI think decided what to write about the topic is the most challenging. I find myself far more comfortable if I have enough resource about the topics and really already have an opinion about it.
During the exam, I will try to think of what to write as quick as possible and get prepared with varieties of topics before sitting the exam.
I did a timed writing in summative test in grades 12, I didn't nervous at all because the question was not too hard and the time teachers gave is quite long.
ReplyDeleteI think organizing ideas and expressing ideas clearly are most challenging because I have to think in order to write and have to make sure that others would understand what my idea is.
For me, I have taken an IETLZ test once. When it came to the writing section, I feel quite stress because I have to think about the topic, supporting, planning and managing time at the same time.
ReplyDeleteFeeling nervous or stressed is the most challenging one because if you are stressed, your mind will started to get messy and you cannot gather much idea.
Next time if I have a timed essay, I will analyze the essay question more closely because when it comes to writing, the mistake I usually have is I do not get the point of the question.
-Yes, I have. I had a limited time writing test when before I get a job as business company which included English test for 2 skills (reading and writing). On that time, I felt very nervous to finish test on time.
ReplyDelete- 1. deciding what to write.
2. felling nervous or stressed
3. finish on time.
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I have had time writing in IELTS test for 3 times and in GRE once. I feel that writing under time limit is not easy and also the questions given are not familiar topic. So, I usually don't have any idea or can't think of reasonable idea to support my essay.
ReplyDeleteI think my main problems for writing test essay are deciding what to write, organizing ideas and expressing ideas clearly. Under the pressure of the test with topics that are not my interests or I never have had experiences before lead to weak essay. Sometimes my essays are not organizing logically and also the structure of essays seems weak.
The popular choice for most challenging aspect of timed writing is deciding what to write about the topic. Whilst I agree with this, I would suggest that a more important challenge is deciding what topic to write about.
ReplyDeleteExam questions often don't specify a narrow topic, for example, the one we did in class on Thursday, based on the writing skill exercise 3 on page 52, asked you to write about a time you were drawn back to a place you had previously known, so the first thing you needed to do for a strong answer was to choose that one time you wanted to tell us the story of.
After you had decided on that topic for your answer, you did need to get ideas on it to respond to the specific points the task told you to discuss in your essay. I changed the writing task for Unit 5 because the one on page 55 is not realistic: in a timed writing, the question is normally something you can answer without having to do any research. You do not, for example, need any specialized knowledge to write a strong answer to an IELTS or TOEFL writing question.
If we have time next week, we will do another timed writing in class.
I think that "deciding what to write about the topic" is very different to "deciding what topic to write about."
Delete