In the minds of ESL exam candidates, e ssay writing is one of the most daunting tasks they are required to complete, regardless of the level of the exam, the administering body or the ease with which they themselves use the language. The same applies to students who are asked to write an essay by their teachers at school.  In the previous sample essays posted on the blog, the main point I stress is the need to become acquainted with this form of writing (as opposed to writing a letter, review or report, for instance), to get a feel of what authorial voice is and how to organize and progressively express the arguments you wish to make in a coherent manner.  Unfortunately, the best way to prepare for exam writing or learn how to write good essays for school is to read as many essays from as many sources as possible, then write as

This is the second sample article I'm posting that conforms to the writing section requirements of the ECPE ( Examination for the Certificate of Proficiency in English) of the University of Michigan as of 2021. As seen in the first post to deal with articles , there are a number of points candidates need to bring to the table when it comes to writing. The main ones are: argumentation organization of paragraphs development of one's reasoning wide range of grammatical structures  lexical range  authorial voice   Don't forget to engage the reader from the start by including an apt title. As always, I refer you to the post that tells you what to take from these sample essays. If you haven't read it, click the image below:    Now, let's take a look at the topic, taken from  Practice Tests for the ECPE Book 1 (revised 2021 version) . The question is accompanied by the following writing prompts:

In our previous essay-writing posts, we dealt with the the overall organization of an essay , the introductory paragraph , the main body paragraph's topic sentence , and lastly the supporting sentences of the main body. I stress once again, for those who haven't read my previous posts in this series, that the information contained within focuses mostly on English as a foreign language exam-type essay questions. This means the advice I give is there to help complete the Writing Section of an exam in approximately half an hour, so all parts of the essay have been whittled down to the bare essentials.  For those who need to work on longer papers of 400 words or more, simply follow the outline given but expand each section. Additionally, feel free to be more creative in adding more paragraphs to the introduction and conclusion. It is rarely possible to write over a paragraph for either the former or latter in an exam when time is pressing, but this is not case with ess...

Writing at C2 level (Proficient User) on English language examinations is the same no matter the awarding body when it comes to writing essays. If you are a candidate giving an exam in English (IELTS, CPE, ECPE, CELP, LRN, ESB, TOEFL), make sure you read my earlier post What do I do with the sample writing found on this blog? to get the most out of the sample essays provided on Argute Legacy .     The topic of this essay is to discuss what the responsibilities of parenting are. If you are not taking an exam but need to discuss this topic, then read on and note down what you deem useful. If you intend to use this essay as part of an assignment, remember to paraphrase so as not to plagiarize. The topic is similar to what candidates expect in any other C2-level examination in that examiners want to see a well-organized, coherent and cohesive discussion of the issue with arguments and examples written in approximately half an hour. Whether or not you ...