Firstly, your child needs to be able to identify the CAP for this Situational Writing task when examining the question.

1. C – Context

   What is the given situation? What is my identity as the writer and what am I going to be writing about?

2. A – Audience

   Whom am I writing to? (It could be the public, the school principal, classmates, a company manager, town council, etc.)

3. P – Purpose

   Why am I writing this? Am I providing information, making a request, lodging a complaint, or commending someone?

Your child will also need to identify the 6 content points as required by the question. Additionally, he or she needs to determine if a formal or informal tone should be used.

To secure the full 9 marks in the language component, your child needs to remember to write with accurate Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling (GPS). Transition words and phrases should also be used to ensure that all points are smoothly linked.

Since 1 hour 10 minutes is the time that is allotted for Paper 1, your child should allocate about 15 to 20 minutes to complete the Situational Writing task.

To begin, your child needs to read the stimulus carefully. Every piece of information is vital, and there could also be “hidden clues” in the background (such as the topic of a project written on the white board behind the teacher, or Terms and Conditions of a contest written in small font).

After scanning the stimulus, most pupils jump to the bullet points right away and miss looking at the task box completely. The task box provides pupils with the CAP information that they need. Can you identify the CAP for this stimulus?

In every stimulus, there are 6 content points, but there may not be 6 bullet points. Your child needs to start by numbering the 6 content requirements of the question. Sometimes, the 6^th content point could be hidden in the task box (part of the context).

Click on the image to reveal the answers.

After numbering the 6 points to look for, your child should go back to the stimulus and highlight or underline the relevant pieces of information that correspond to these content points. Go back to the prompt now. Can you identify the 6 points given?

Click on the image to reveal the answers.

With all this information, your child can get down to writing. However, one way to secure a higher score for the language component is to use transition words and phrases to sequence the points, rather than just listing sentence after sentence.

So what kind of transition words and phrases should your child use?

To show cause and effect:

hence, as a result, therefore, thus

To show sequence/order:

first, second, next, then, finally

To add on points that are similar:

additionally, in addition, moreover, besides

To reflect time:

after that, afterwards, immediately after, subsequently

Enrol in our Enhancing English Language Skills (EELS) programme to give your child the opportunity to read critically and write confidently while learning about the world.

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