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
You'l l find all types of explanations of the subjunctive in books and on websites that have probably more erudite scholars working on grammatical issues than I , however, I tend to sim plify grammar to its lowe st common denominator so that stude nts don't decide to power off the minute they hear me say the word "grammar " during a lesson. So if i t's scholarly, linguistic, super duper comprehensive explanations you're after, please refer to other sites that champion top-notch academics who will tackle gramma tical structures the way they're meant to be tackled. A s for me, I 'm here to teach the basics so that if you're trying to learn grammar to pass an English examination or basically to understand what a grammatical phenom enon is, how it's used and when it's used, you can do so without too many gaps in understanding. The subjunctive is a grammatical structure (to be m ore precise it is a mood, not a tense) which denotes mor...