Little dumb things we may lose marks over?

[nickglyn]

Okay so just quickly, I've been told this a few times but I just want to affirm them. Do we lose marks for our:

Sloppy handwriting? (because bad handwriting may ruin the flow and rhythm of the essay,ß apparently)
Not using connective words at the beginning of every paragraph? (I've read some band 6 essays and they don't have them, yet teachers have told us to use them...)
Having a short conclusion? I've also seen some great band 6 essays where their conclusion was like 50 words or so)
Using the '&' symbol?

Thanks in advance!

[roshanajabbour]

Okay so just quickly, I've been told this a few times but I just want to affirm them. Do we lose marks for our:

Sloppy handwriting? (because bad handwriting may ruin the flow and rhythm of the essay,ß apparently)
Not using connective words at the beginning of every paragraph? (I've read some band 6 essays and they don't have them, yet teachers have told us to use them...)
Having a short conclusion? I've also seen some great band 6 essays where their conclusion was like 50 words or so)
Using the '&' symbol?

Thanks in advance!

I've been told that for sloppy handwriting, the exam paper will be passed on to other markers until someone can read it.
If it can't be read, the exam will be marked as illegible or something like that and be put aside.

[elysepopplewell]

Okay so just quickly, I've been told this a few times but I just want to affirm them. Do we lose marks for our:

Sloppy handwriting? (because bad handwriting may ruin the flow and rhythm of the essay,ß apparently)
Not using connective words at the beginning of every paragraph? (I've read some band 6 essays and they don't have them, yet teachers have told us to use them...)
Having a short conclusion? I've also seen some great band 6 essays where their conclusion was like 50 words or so)
Using the '&' symbol?

Thanks in advance!

I think that the short conclusion is rather not losing you marks, but perhaps, stopping you from gaining marks. I think that if the body of your work gets a bit chaotic, but you bring it back really strong in a conclusion, you have potential to leave the tone of your essay sophisticated. My teacher used to correct me on & but I don't think its something you lose marks for. But I stopped doing it, because it's lazy

Connective words at the beginning of every paragraph? As in, firstly, secondly, conclusively? They are my pet hates for essays! I hate using them!

[lysscass]

I don't think we will lose marks for writing messily, the examiners know that we are speed writing to try and get all our essays out in 2 hours. if it's really messy they might get someone else to read it, i doubt any marks will be taken off unless it is just crazily messy

[vyca]

Its not so much that they take marks off for messy writing, but messy writing can have a massive impact on the clarity of your work which then results in less marks!

[studybuddy7777]

Also getting words such as "composers" mixed with "composes" or "characters" with "characterise".

And not underlining your texts!! Eg Richard III (title) compared to Richard III (character).

While these do not directly lose marks, they make the text less coherent which is always a marking criteria.

"Composes a coherent response.."

[jamonwindeyer]

On the topic of silly things to lose marks over/common mistakes, you should check out this article as well for common English mistakes!

[Hua Fei]

Will using the '&' symbol result in a mark loss? I have a habit of writing '&' instead of 'and' every time.

[studybuddy7777]

Will using the '&' symbol result in a mark loss? I have a habit of writing '&' instead of 'and' every time.

Hey Hua Fei!

While it won't direct result in marking loss, it depends on what marker you essentially get. Some people like to correct "&" with "and", but some markers don't care. Try to get yourself out of the habit though, it is looked upon as lazy by the markers and may just put the marker in that mindset if they are deciding on 2 marks to go for the lower one.

Hope this helps and good luck for tomorrow and friday! Im sure youll smash it