Opinion Piece (Masterclass)

What is it?

• Question asked to give opinion on a real world matter — examiner wants your view on things backed up by experience in your (or young people in general’s) lives.

• Worth 50 marks and 12.5% of the Spanish grade.

The Pre-Game

• Plan the answer in English (must).

  • Intro, 3 points, conclusion

  • What is talked about in the 3 points

  • Key vocab from such points (keywords, connectors, etc)

• Read through all 3 points, pick the one that you fully understand — NEVER half guess

• Try to get 1-1.5 A4 pages, within 25-30 minutes.

Post-essay Check

• Do the same words show up too much? Can they be replaced with synonyms?

• Are the nouns, adjectives and articles in the right gender and singular/plural form?

• Read-aloud. Do certain areas sound weird, or sentences dragged out too long?

Tips for practices on the fly

• Write shorter sentences (less mistakes, sounds better)

• Hone in on one mistake at a time (easy to eliminate)

• Write what we CAN write (practical, not fancy)

• Read in your head to check after essay.

• Note repetition in vocab and look for synonyms.

• Read and listen to more Spanish.

What makes a H1 Opinion Piece?

• Content/Communication

  • Very easy to follow with a very clear structure and connected ideas.

  • The arguments are very well structured and very easy to follow.

  • The examiner easily understands the message very clearly.

  • There’s almost no irrelevant material (everything leads back to the question).

• Language

  • Lots of natural sounding Spanish with some idioms that fit the context (not forced)