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The criteria for grading writing are: relevance, organization, language, and word count. By being on topic, it means checking whether your essay deviates from the subject. By organization, it is meant that the arguments in each paragraph are clear, the various aspects being discussed are distinct, and the times described are accurate. ? I. Understanding the topic? The first thing we need to do once we receive the essay is to understand its topic. The purpose of understanding the question is to ensure that your writing stays on topic (if it does not, no matter how good the organization and language may be, you won’t get a passing grade, or even a zero). ) So what exactly needs to be considered when analyzing the question? ? 1. Genre (argumentative essay, expository essay, descriptive essay)? Analyzing the topic involves understanding the genre and subject of the essay. Because each genre requires different themes for its writing. So what are the genres included? As for the CET-4 and CET-6 exams, they include argumentative essays, expository essays, and descriptive essays. In recent years, the compositions for CET-4 and CET-6 are not a single genre, but rather a mixture of several genres. For example, one of the topics for the Band 4 exam was as follows: Directions: For this part, you have 30 minutes to write an essay on the topic of “Trying to Be A Good University Student”. You should write at least 100 words, and your essay should be based on the outline (provided in Chinese) below: (1) The necessity of being a qualified university student; (2) The essential conditions for being a qualified university student (which can include aspects such as morality, intelligence, and physical fitness); (3) What I plan to do. Many people say that this type of essay is an argumentative essay. We believe it is one-sided to call it an argumentative essay. Because the first paragraph requires writing about “...necessity,” this indicates that the genre of this paragraph is an argumentative essay ； The second paragraph requires writing about “...essential conditions,” which indicates that this paragraph is meant for an expository essay ； And the third paragraph requires writing “...by doing this”, which indicates that this paragraph is meant to be a descriptive text. Therefore, we say that in most cases, the essays for Levels 4 and 6 are hybrids of three different genres. 2. Determine writing methods based on different genres. The purpose of analyzing a topic is to identify appropriate writing methods depending on the genre in question. By analyzing the exam requirements, we can see that most CET-4 and CET-6 essays follow a three-paragraph structure. As in the example above, the first paragraph is in an expository style, the second paragraph is in an illustrative style, and the third paragraph is in a descriptive style. The narrative style has its own way of writing, the expository style has its own way of writing, and the descriptive style also has its own distinctive features. The first paragraph is an argumentative essay: its characteristic in writing is that it requires arguments and evidence, and it often presents arguments from both positive and negative perspectives. For example, the approach to writing the first paragraph of the question above is: What happens if one becomes a qualified college student (this is an affirmative discussion) ； What happens if one cannot become a qualified college graduate (from a negative perspective)? ； So we need to be qualified college students (conclusion). The second paragraph is an expository text: its writing feature is to explain a problem from several aspects or points, just like the instruction manual for a machine, which explains its uses using numbers 1, 2, 3. Regarding the essay above, we explain the necessity of being a qualified college student from three aspects (morality, intelligence, and physical fitness). The third paragraph is a descriptive one: it describes a process of \"doing\" with \"people\" as the focus. Compared to the previous two paragraphs, the subject in this paragraph is mostly a personal pronoun. It should be described in a way that corresponds to the second paragraph. ? II. Topic sentence? By analyzing the topic, we understand the approach to writing. Next, we will discuss how to write it. The first step is to write the topic sentence. The topic sentence is a prerequisite for staying on track; only by staying on topic is it possible to achieve a passing grade. The safest way to write a topic sentence is to translate each required sentence into English. For example, the topic sentences for the three paragraphs in the aforementioned essay are as follows: ☆ It is very necessary to be a good university student. (A topic sentence in an argumentative style) ☆ There are several aspects that are necessary for being a good university student. (A topic sentence in an expository style) ☆ What I will do in the future is the following. (A topic sentence for a descriptive essay) If the requirement is expressed in English, it can be expanded into a topic sentence; for instance, in an essay like this: Good Health (1) Importance of good health (2) Ways to keep fit (3) My own practices The requirements outlined in such an essay can thus be transformed into topic sentences. The topic sentences for the three expanded paragraphs are as follows: ☆ It is very important to have good health. (Changing the noun \"importance\" to the adjective \"important\") ☆ There are four ways to keep fit for me. (Using the there be sentence structure) ☆ My own practices are the following. (Using the original words.) III. Coherence Ensuring that the topic is not strayed from is the most important task in writing; the second most important task is to maintain clarity and coherence. In an argumentative essay, the pros and cons must be clear. For expository texts, points 1, 2, and 3 need to be clear; for descriptive texts, it is important to know who does what. Take the previous example, Good Health, as an instance. The first paragraph should be structured so that the positive and negative aspects are clearly distinguished. It should read like this: Topic sentence (It is very important to have good health.), Positive aspect (With good health, we can…), Negative aspect (Without good health, we can do nothing; we can’t do…). The second paragraph should be written as follows: Topic sentence (There are four ways to keep fit.). This paragraph should explain these ways: Firstly, we should have breakfast in the morning. Second, we should take a nap at noon. Third, physical exercise is necessary in the afternoon. And fourth, we can feel happy in the evening by listening to music…. To make the article more organized, we can use adverbs such as first(ly), second(ly), third(ly), etc., which help to emphasize the structure of the text. Essays are subjective tasks; to achieve high scores, we must take the examiners into account. Marking teachers have very little time (they only have a minute or two to review the essay in each paper), so it’s best to avoid using phrases like: To begin with, ... After that,... And then,... The next,... The following,... At last ... when listing points. Because using such words makes it difficult for the graders to see the structure of your essay. ? The third paragraph should be written as follows: Topic sentence (My own practices are the following.) Specific details (with the first-person pronoun I as the subject, echoing the second paragraph): In the morning, I have my breakfast. At noon, I take a nap. And in the afternoon, I always play football. In the evening, I usually listen to classic music.? In summary, if we follow the approach outlined in these paragraphs, we can ensure a score above the passing mark. IV. The twelve-sentence composition method? In the criteria for evaluating compositions, the number of words is also a requirement. For the CET-4 and CET-6 writing tasks, it is required to write 120-150 words. Candidates need not worry about not writing enough for such requirements. We know that most CET-4 and CET-6 essays follow a three-paragraph structure. Let’s do the math: if we write four sentences in each paragraph, that is, a topic sentence plus two or three supporting sentences and a concluding sentence. In this way, the whole text has about twelve sentences. Each sentence has over ten words, so that makes 120-150 words in total. At the same time, we also remind everyone not to write too much, as doing so can easily cause the topic to drift. When writing, we should write horizontally, that is, cover the horizontal aspect of a particular issue. For example, when discussing the importance of health as mentioned above, we only need to write four sentences. The first sentence is the topic sentence; the second sentence presents the argument from a positive perspective, the third sentence does so from a negative perspective, and the fourth sentence is the concluding sentence. But some students, when writing, say that “health is very important,” and then they write that “eating kale is very important,” because kale is rich in iron, and iron is very important for humans, because... The basic structure of such an essay is A-B, B-C, C-D, D-E, and so on. This is just a chronological account without a central theme. When writing, we should structure it according to horizontal sections, rather than writing in a linear manner. A way to avoid writing in a linear manner is to refrain from describing another non-key word from the previous sentence. When writing the topic sentence from a horizontal perspective, once one horizontal section has been written, no further elaboration on that section is needed; instead, one should move on to write another horizontal section. ? If we feel the word count is not enough, we can simply add some words to each sentence or to certain sentences. For example, if we feel that the second paragraph isn’t long enough, we can add words in this way: The main sentence is “There are four ways to keep fit.” – “There are four or more ways to keep fit for each of us.” We can explain this from several aspects: Firstly, we should have breakfast in the morning. – Firstly, we should consume breakfast items such as milk, eggs, bread, and so on in the morning. Second, we should take a nap at noon. – Secondly, we should take a short nap, even just 30 minutes, at noon. Third, physical exercise is necessary in the afternoon. – Thirdly, physical exercise is important for everyone, and we can engage in some exercises in the afternoon. And fourth, we can feel happy in the evening by listening to music. – And fourthly, we can enjoy a pleasant mood in the evening by listening to both popular and classical music. In this way, as long as we maintain the theme of the original sentence and add some additional words, we can meet the required word count.