DSE 2024: English writing exam fairly straightforward, but students have trouble on reading paper

DSE 2024: What to keep in mind for the English Listening exam

Students anticipating an excerpt similar to the 2023 selection from Michelle Obama’s autobiography were relieved as they flipped through the reading passages, as this year’s paper focused more on Hong Kong culture for Parts A and B1.

However, many who attempted the more challenging Part B2, about Ben Goldacre’s groundbreaking book Bad Science, struggled to finish the exam on time.

Ansley Lee Kwan-ting, an English teacher at Kiangsu-Chekiang College and Alan Chan, a tutor at King’s Glory Education Centre, said this year’s papers were fairly doable and that candidates would be able to score well.

Lee said this year’s reading questions were easier to understand than last year’s and that keywords were easy to spot. “Students did not have to spend too much time and effort inferring the writer’s tone and attitude,” she said.

“I bet candidates did not have difficulty attempting all the questions in the reading and writing papers,” Lee said. She added that this year’s questions ranged from local Hong Kong cultural elements, such as hawker culture and tree management and conservation, to social issues in the city, like dog-friendly venues and the low birth rate. “These are topics that students should be familiar with, and it should be easy for them to link the topics with daily life when attempting both papers.”

Chan agreed that most students should score well in the compulsory writing question, which asked them to compose an email about an unsatisfactory hotel stay. “Every school teaches complaint letters in their syllabuses, and I believe most students have the experience of travelling after the Covid-19 pandemic,” the tutor said.

He pointed out that in many Hong Kong families, students are the ones booking the trips online. “So they are familiar with the process. They read reviews and comments when booking hotels and can get many ideas from there.”

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Chan said Paper 1, Parts A and B1, and Paper 2 were easy to handle. However, Paper 1’s Part B2 had some tricky and unusual questions. “This year, there were seven questions that required students to give examples from the passage in Part B2, which is a lot compared to previous years,” he said. To ace this question, students had to correctly identify the passage’s main idea, supporting arguments, and the writer’s intention.

The tutor also drew attention to the two tables (questions 43 and 51), testing students’ ability to summarise and rephrase the information from the reading passage. “Overall, this year’s paper was still straightforward. But do not be dejected if you think you did not do well on today’s exam. Instead, focus on preparing for tomorrow’s listening paper.”

According to Chan, candidates can pay more attention to report writing, proposals, biodata and profiles, and speeches and scripts since they were not tested on the reading and writing exams. The same goes for formal letters, even though they appeared today. “There are three tasks in tomorrow’s listening exam, and there’s a good chance these text types will come up.”

He said that since the exam authorities usually strike a balance between the papers, the listening exam may be challenging, and students should be on high alert. Lee added that candidates need to be extra careful about their grammar usage; even tiny, careless mistakes could cause them to lose marks.

Mark*, a 17-year-old student from La Salle College, said both Part A and B2 of this year’s reading paper were harder than last year’s, and he was only left with two minutes to check his answers.

On the other hand, the compulsory writing question was easy. “We could draw from our own experiences when answering this question,” he said.

Louisa Hernandez from Kiangsu-Chekiang College said Paper 1 was slightly challenging, while Paper 2 was fairly manageable. “The trickiest part of Paper 1 was making sense of the reading passages while trying to find the answers,” the 17-year-old said. She found this somewhat complex because many of the questions required students to read between the lines and draw conclusions from the text.

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Hernandez also chose Part B2 for the reading paper. “Sadly, I wasn’t able to finish answering all the questions. A lot of my friends also found it difficult, to the point where some of us could not finish this section in time.”

Hernandez felt that students should be able to achieve a good score on Paper 2 as long as they organised their writing logically. She tackled Question 4, which asked students to write a letter to the editor on whether they felt that Hong Kong had gone too far in its efforts to be dog-friendly.

“Today’s exam was beyond my expectations and I am anxious about tomorrow’s paper. I’m worried that the listening exam might be just as challenging as today’s.”

*Name changed at interviewee’s request.