See this sample Article from the Cambridge English Proficiency (CPE) Writing paper with feedback from a teacher

Writing Class: Article

Task Type: Article

Question
You are looking through the alumni newsletter of a school that you once attended and you see the following announcement:

What are your best and worst school memories? Write in and tell us and we will publish the most interesting articles in our next newsletter.

Write the article for the editor of the alumni newsletter. (around 280 - 320 words)

Makeover: Talita

Read Talita's answer to this question below. Try correcting the piece of writing yourself first: use the marking codes to think about what might be wrong (or what's good) about the piece of work. Then when you're ready, click the green buttons in the text for our feedback.

The improbable happened twice

When it comes to school years it is hard to point out only one or two memories. There are so many to choose; those were times of joy, fun and lots of adventures. I am going to tell you about my best and worst school memories.

Let us travel back to 1990 Gd when I was in 7th grade. I used to sit at the back of the classroom, spend WF whole lessons with parallel - talking, drawing and daydreaming a lot. Believe it or not I also had really good grades and the appreciation of most teachers. At that year especifically PE was hold a huge contest PE where students would compete among other grades PE solving math marathons, geography projects and even gathering items from anywhere in the town such as a special fruit or the oldest person (who had to be convinced to come to our presentation). Some tasks would only be published at WW the last day and demanded a lot of team work, union WW and a little bit of luck. The least probable result came with the announcement of the best cheer team, foreign language song audition and creative presentation. Although it was not expected, we beat the seniors brilliantly. "Equiperalta" made history and would never be forgotten.

My worst memory took place in my last high school year during preparation for the CEE (college entrance exam). We were having the external games and were hosting Salesiano students from Recife. It was Saturday morning, when the boring English lesson was taking place that was happening the great handball final us against recife. PE How could I miss it? How could anyone dare not to be there? It was with no regret that I skipped the English lesson not returning from our break and running straight to the stadium in order to cheer for them. Our buddies playing against those conceited guys so fond of themselves, our most terrible rivals ever since. So I was there the whole match, cheering. I saw the Principal, the feared Mario Sergio on the other side, and he blinked to WW me. I was trying to get out among the crowd when I heard that ice tuned WW voice: 'What are you doing in here? Don`t you have lessons?' I smiled and replied: 'I guess the same thing you are ... cheering for our team.' He said: 'You must not come on Monday. I tried to explain myself telling him it was an English lesson but that just made things worse. He continued: so Ms Talita you are assuming you are skipping two lessons on purpose. You are suspended for four lessons. My world fell apart, I would miss the fearful chemistry mid term test and would be obliged to take it orally, that was just NOT fair.

Well, I had to struggle with chemistry a little bit but it was worth the game PE that we won at WW the last few minutes and I had not learnt my lesson, neither did I forget the Principal's ironic smile nor injustice. Many years after that I would again skip lessons at college, those ones considered meaningless, for joining WF a surfing contest. Do you want to know the consequences? I got first place.

Feedback

An interesting account of some happy, and not so happy, times at school. You addressed the main points in the question and organised the article into appropriate paragraphs. You also managed to express the importance that these events had for you at the time. There are a number of errors that should be avoided at this level. You should try to read through your work to check for clarity and correct sentence structure. Finally, try to keep to the word limit as this is significantly longer than the 300-350 word limit. Thanks for sharing these memories with us!

Marking Code

/\ Word(s) missing

- Omit word

C Capitalization

Gd Good

O Organisation

P Punctuation

PE Poorly expressed

R Register/Formality

SS Sentence Structure

S Spelling

T Tip

WF Wrong form

WO Word order

WT Wrong tense

WW Wrong word

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