Writing: Exercise 6 (Writing a Report)

From 2019 onwards, Exercise 6 could also be a report-writing task.

You will be given a particular context and asked to write a report on it. You are expected to write 150-200 words, and the exercise is worth 16 marks.

Let’s look at a sample question:

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Follow these steps to answer the question:

• Make a plan and spend not more than 5 minutes on it. It should give you a rough idea of the details you want to include in your report, what you want to write in your introduction, body and conclusion. Remember, the purpose of a report is to reflect on and evaluate something, so make sure you keep that in mind when drawing up your plan.

1. Read the question carefully and ensure that you know what it is asking for. It may be helpful to underline the important points in pencil.
2. Come up with a title. It should be brief and relevant and will give you a good start.
3. Write a strong, but concise, introduction. This paragraph should include the most important details of the event that you are reporting on – the ‘who‘(your class), ‘what‘(a trip), ‘when‘(last week? last month?), ‘where‘(large recycling centre) , ‘why(learn about recycling)’ and ‘how‘(if applicable).
4. You need to then organise your body according to what the question is asking for. For example, you are asked to write a report on what you did on the trip (write about three points. Example: spoke to employees, visited sorting unit, watched a plastic recycling process etc.) and what you learned from it as well (write about two points. Example: only 50% of materials brought in are recycled, recycling helps the environment). You could have one paragraph on the former and one on the latter. Be clear.
5. The ending paragraph should briefly conclude the report. In the sample question above, you are asked to write a suggestion for improvement, so this could be your conclusion. Write a couple of sentences outlining your views on how the trip went (example: very informative or too long) and one or two suggestions (example: hands-on-experience, watch a video etc.).

Other tips:

1. You can use the picture prompt as well as the written prompts, but you can score higher marks for your own ideas.
2. Keep the language reasonably formal and direct, but there’s no need to use jargon or big words.
3. Keep in mind that the exercise is to write a report. Be direct and straightforward in your approach. Don’t overthink your points and add unnecessary comments and opinions of your own.
4. Keep your points concise. There should be only 150-200 words, after all.

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