How do you get your children to keep within the allocated word count?
“Quality matters more than quantity” – What better way to justify this statement than bringing about the example of an exam scenario? For most of the exams, there is a word count mentioned against most composition or descriptive questions. What does this mean? The exam demands the students to concentrate on the quality of the answer rather than the quantity. They want our students not to fill up several pages with detailed answers, instead, they just want a “to the point” answer. This again depends on the marks allocated for the question.
For English and any other language compositions, there will be a word count. It is so that the students will be prompted to bring out their writing capabilities within the constraint set. Many find it hard to deal with this restriction placed on them. Some will find it hard to reach the necessary word count due to a lack of content, while others may find it hard to convey all they want in the limited number of words. Unless you find the right balance, you will struggle to score good marks in your composition. So, let us look at how we can change this and how to help your children keep within their required word count.
Practice as much as you can
Ask your children to practice writing as much as they can. Assign topics to them and set word and time limits for them to adhere to. Check the quality of their composition and discuss with them what they wanted to convey with it. Then assess their composition and point out to them how they can improve on it and how to keep to the word count.
Teach them how to plan out what they are going to write
Show your children how they can plan out the structure and the outline of the composition and use it to keep to the word and time constraints. Different people will have different methods for planning out their essays and compositions. Experiment and find out which method suits your children and adopt it. Ask your children to practice with it as much as they can and test them on how they implement it by giving them random topics.
Use examples and different viewpoints
If you are someone who struggles to hit the word count, you can make use of examples and the different viewpoints of a topic to add to your word count. Read through your points and see where you’ll be able to add an example. It will also help in showing the examiner that you’re more familiar with the topic. Also, instead of focusing on a single viewpoint, try to address different aspects of the topic being discussed. You can try to explain how it is seen by different people, in what way it can be interpreted differently, the aspects you find interesting or you don’t agree with, and so on. It will add depth to your composition as well as help you hit that word count.
Avoid redundancy
Most often students repeat multiple points. The topics will be introduced in the beginning and will be explained again and again as the composition progresses, causing you to easily shoot past your word limit. So, read through the composition and try to eliminate redundancies and keep your intro and conclusion simple and to the point. But at the same time, if you are looking to hit the word count, reworking your intros and conclusions can be the best way to do that.
Keep your sentences short
If you are struggling to keep within the word limit, make sure to keep your sentences small and to the point. Help your children work on their vocabulary and learn words and phrases that can be substituted in place of each other to either reduce the count or increase it. For example, for describing something ordinary and dull, you can use the word mundane. Similarly, instead of “not later than” you can use “by” to indicate the date by which something has to be done. There are many other examples you can try out. As we keep saying, practice is the best way for your children to achieve fluency in putting such techniques into practice. So, encourage your children to write as much as they can and help by giving them pointers.
Interchange Active and Passive voices
Active voice sentences generally use fewer words than passive voice ones. When you are reporting something spoken or done by another person, it takes extra words to do so. When you want to increase your word count, you can rely more on passive voice sentences to do so and when you want to limit your words, you can use active voice. But make sure your text is not too confusing and difficult to comprehend.
Always keep a watch out for the word count. Some examiners might punish you for not keeping to it. So, try not to lose your marks to such a simple overlook. Also, we cannot stress this point enough- practice and practice as much as you can. Nothing else can get you used to keeping up with the time limit and stress of the exam and keeping to your word limit. We hope these tips prove helpful to you.
We wish you all the best for your upcoming exams! 🙂
Exam Smart Tips
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Exam Smart Tip #3 – Establishing Routines!
Exam Smart Tip #4 – Let’s Read Carefully!
Exam Smart Tip #5 – Beating the Exam Fever!
Exam Smart Tip #6 – How to Eat Right for the Exams?
Exam Smart Tip #7 – How to Avoid a Meltdown?
Exam Smart Tip #8 – Taking Stress out of Tests
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