Checklist for Your First English Exam

A16 D3, Ms Meyer, 2014

Exam preparation
book pp. 326f.
Get organized. Start early.
Find your own style of preparing for the exam, alone or in a team, but dont expect others to
learn for you.
Learn from your mistakes, e.g. go over old tests.
Focus on your weak areas. Dont practice what you already know!
Look at the class website under resources or check the web for exercises.
Make sure you know how to use aids that are allowed in the exam, i.e. the dictionary
book pp. 274f., Look at the class website under exam preparation for exercises and tips
for using a dictionary.
You must practice the specific type of exam you will be taking. Write and correct as much as
you can.
Work on your style and vocabulary.
book pp.257-264, workbook pp.54-61
The Stages of Writing
The different stages of writing involve many skills, including techniques for collecting and organizing
ideas, style, using reference and proofreading.
In general, always use the following steps:
READ > PLAN/THINK > WRITE > CORRECT > REWRITE
1. The Planning Stage
Step 1: Read the task carefully! It defines your topic. Consider the kind of text you are writing
(e.g. a story) as well as who you are writing for (formal or informal) and why. Do you want to
convince, inform or simply entertain your readers?
Step 2: Define your point of view.
Step 2: Brainstorm your topic. Collect ideas in a list or mind map.
Step 3: Organize your ideas. Select the points you want to use in your text and decide on an
order for presenting your ideas. Write an outline or number the ideas to show the order for
presenting them. Think of the topic sentence and final sentence for your paragraphs and how to
link your ideas.
2. The Drafting Stage
Step 1: Write a rough draft of your text following your outline or mind map. At this stage dont
worry about the best way of saying something or being perfect, just let your ideas flow (you may

use single German words and look up the meaning later). Leave room and time to add things or
to make corrections later.
Step 2: Read what you have written and make initial improvements. Check if your text makes
sense and the single parts fit together nicely. Try out different ideas. Check if your tone is
appropriate and if your ideas and sentences are linked well.
3. The Revision Stage
Leave enough time to proofread your work! see website and book p. 310
Step 1: Read your text as whole and ask yourself the following questions: Is it logical? Does it say
everything you want to say? Is everything in the right order? Make any necessary changes.
Step 2: Read your text slowly and carefully. Check the content, style, grammar, vocabulary,
idiomatic expressions, spelling and punctuation. Especially look for mistakes you often make!
Correct any mistakes. Use a dictionary. Consider whether the sentence structure is clean and
simple and whether your ideas develop from paragraph to paragraph. If you have used quotes,
check if you have quoted correctly.
4. Clean Copy
Incorporate all your changes in the final version of your text and rewrite it nicely.

Creative Writing
is a form of writing where the purpose is to express thoughts, feelings and emotions rather than
simply convey information.
I will ask you to produce a text based on a certain situation in The Fault in Our Stars.
Three different types of tasks:
1) create a dialogue (two characters talk directly)
2) write an inner monologue (speech of a character to himself, reader is overhearing
characters uncensored thoughts)
3) continue the story (narration, the story has to fit nicely to the rest)
Your task might be to add apart to a text or change the point of view of the text, etc.

Read and analyze the original source material. Consider text type, structure and style,
atmosphere, the narrator and their point of view, characters etc. in order to write a text that
matches the original.

If you add something to the text, follow logically from the original and make sure that the
characters act as in the original.

Think about the best way of expressing your ideas in terms of text type or genre as well as the
narrator and their point of view.

Trying to create the characters voice, you will use word choice and tone or emotional attitude
that matches the character. What would he/she do or think?

Point of view:
first person
second person
third person (objective, limited, omniscient)