KiasuParents' Young Writer's Contest 2012 : Scores from panel of judges

The contest has since closed and a few English teachers from reputable tuition centres were invited to score all the essays shorlisted for the Young Writers Contest. 

Here's sharing how the panel of judges scored DD1's entry.


Duncan Rose,
Head of Schools,
British Council Singapore.

Several sections appeared to have idiomatic phrases which felt slightly unnatural i.e. rote learned. Prepositions were missing i.e. ‘reminisce all’. Past tense and perfect tense demonstrated a number of errors. Additionally, subject verb disagreement was noted i.e. ‘tears that was glistening’. A good effort hampered by grammatical errors.

Total : 6/10

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Raihan Miskam,
The Write Connection

Strengths:

Precise words are used to show, and not tell.
Confident use of English

Weakness:

Introduction, body and conclusion need some revision. Structure and main point of writing is unclear.
Sense of purpose and/or audience is unclear. 

Total : 6/10

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Neo Yi Qun,

Beautyful Minds

Content: 4.3

Good humour is achieved through effective mental simulations. Candidate made a good choice of shifting her thoughts from something lighthearted to brooding moments. This is great for creating story flow. Mature and genuine reflections conveyed in each paragraph. Overall relevant to the topic.

Language 4.2

Non optimal phrasing and prepositional mistakes are observed in some parts of the writing. Examples:

'...back in reality doing reflection about the year that has passed by me so quickly.' vs '...back in reality reflecting about how quickly the year has passed by' (better) 

'was painful in parts' vs 'was painful at parts' (better)

'My blessing in disguise was that this was the time I realized who my true friends were.' vs 'My blessing in disguise was the moment I realised who my true friends were'(better)

Other than the above, there is good sentence variation. Great keywords used to capture essence of expression. E.g Reminisce, obnoxious, in a half daze quipping etc

Total : 8.5/10

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David Squires,

Centre Director (Tiong Bahru)

Kip McGrath

I liked the beginning. It immediately made me sympathise with the writer. By using specific people (Gurmit Singh and Joanne Peh) it made it much easier to visualise the celebrations than if non-specific nouns were used.  It was an imaginative beginning and I think we all dreamt of becoming rich when we were children. There are some appropriate phrases (e.g. pillar of strength). I liked the way the writer reflected first on 2012 and then connected this to their aspirations for 2013. . The writer’s voice is effective and he/she is obviously close to his/her mother and that does come across in the writing. It would be much stronger to put the parts about the writer’s mother together as at the moment they are separated by a few ideas thrown together (eg popularity at school, learning at school). The writer could have chosen one part of the story to really ellaborate on. For example about the rumours being spread. This could have been used to generate the writer’s character and a lot of feelings could have come out.

Total : 8/10

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Esmonde Luo Jiawen,
The Alternative Story

Vocabulary:  2/3
Grammar:  1/3
Content:  2/4

Total:  6/10

Comments: A very good attempt. However, it fell short because of numerous grammar errors. There was a visible effort to employ good vocabulary in this essay. However, several words were not utilised appropriately, causing their usage to inadvertently backfire.

Nevertheless, it was a pleasure to read about the author's relationship with his/her mother. Keep working at it!