Continuous Writing: How to Choose the Right Question
Most Continuous Writing outcomes are decided before the writing starts. Candidates pick the question that sounds most interesting, discover four paragraphs in that they have nothing left to say, and spend the rest of the time padding.
Choose on evidence, not appeal.
Test each option against these four
Do I have three real points, right now?
Not “could I think of some”. Can you name them in thirty seconds?
Do I have a concrete example for each?
Something specific. Invented general examples read as invented.
Can I picture the ending?
If you cannot see where it finishes, you will run out of control.
Is the vocabulary within reach?
A topic needing words you are unsure of will expose you.
Any option failing two of these is the wrong option, however appealing the title.
Spend three minutes planning
Three minutes of planning buys back ten minutes of drifting later. Write nothing but a skeleton.
The skeleton
One line: what this piece argues or shows
Your spine.
Three points, three or four words each
Not sentences.
One example beside each point
The concrete detail.
Last sentence, written out in full
Knowing your ending keeps the middle pointed at it.
Openings that work
Avoid opening with a definition or a dictionary quotation. Markers see hundreds of those.
Four openings that earn attention
The thing that separates grades
It is rarely vocabulary. It is control — paragraphs of roughly even weight, a clear line of thought, and an ending that lands rather than stops. Every one of those comes from the plan, not the prose.
In preparation
The Sentence Repair Kit
Four editions built separately for Lower Secondary N(T), N(T), N(A) and O-Level — every error type in this article, drilled with worked repairs and exam-style practice. Ready in time for prelims.
Browse the Secondary range →
