Model Answers
Answers to take apart, not to memorise. Under every one is a set of notes explaining what makes it work.
Read this before you read the answers
- These are teaching materials written by RCF English. They are not official answers, and they are not the only acceptable answers.
- Do not memorise them. An answer copied from a website into an examination script is easy for an examiner to spot and does not fit the question you were actually asked.
- Use them the way a carpenter uses a finished chair: to see how the joints are made.
- Read the notes under each answer. The notes are the lesson; the answer is only the example.
How to study a model answer
- Read the question, and give yourself two minutes to plan an answer of your own before you look at the model.
- Read the model once for what it says.
- Read it again and mark the parts: where does it open, where is the main information, where does it close?
- Read the notes and check whether you had spotted each point yourself.
- Cover the model and write your own answer to the same question.
- Compare, and note the one thing you would change. One improvement made is worth ten noticed.
Model 1 — Notice
Question: As the secretary of the Environmental Club, write a notice inviting students to take part in a tree-planting programme.
ST JOHN'S COLLEGE — ENVIRONMENTAL CLUB
NOTICE
5 September
TREE-PLANTING PROGRAMME
The Environmental Club will conduct a tree-planting programme in the school grounds on Saturday, 20 September, from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Students of all grades may take part. Saplings and tools will be provided by the club. Participants are requested to come in games clothes and to bring a bottle of water.
Those who wish to join should give their names to the undersigned before Wednesday, 17 September.
N. Dissanayake
Secretary, Environmental Club
Why this answer works
- All the essential parts are present: organisation, NOTICE, date, heading, body, name and position.
- The first line of the body answers what, when and where in a single sentence.
- The second paragraph answers who may come and what they must bring — the practical questions a reader will have.
- The third paragraph gives the action required and a deadline with a day and a date.
- There is no greeting and no closing phrase, because a notice has neither.
- The whole thing is under eighty words. A notice should be short.
Model 2 — Formal email
Question: Write an email to the manager of a bookshop enquiring about books for O/L English revision, and asking about prices and delivery to your town.
Subject: Enquiry about O/L English revision books
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am a Grade 11 student preparing for the G.C.E. Ordinary Level examination, and I am writing to enquire about revision books for English.
I should like to know which titles you have for O/L English grammar and writing practice, and whether you also stock books of past papers with answers. If you could send me the titles and the current prices, I should be grateful.
I live in Weliketiya, which is some distance from your shop. Could you also let me know whether you deliver books to this area, what the delivery charge would be, and how long delivery normally takes?
Thank you for your assistance. I look forward to your reply.
Yours faithfully,
A. Bandara
Why this answer works
- The subject line states the purpose in six words.
- Dear Sir or Madam is used because the reader's name is unknown, so the closing is Yours faithfully.
- The first sentence establishes who the writer is and why they are writing. The reader now knows how to answer.
- The questions are grouped by subject: books and prices in one paragraph, delivery in the next. Grouping questions makes them easy to answer, and an easy question gets a quicker reply.
- Each question is specific. Please send details would have been much weaker.
- The tone is polite and formal throughout, with full forms rather than short forms.
Model 3 — Paragraph
Question: Write a paragraph about a person who has influenced you.
The person who has influenced me most is my grandmother, although she never went beyond Grade 8 at school. She could not help me with my homework, but she taught me something I have found more useful: how to keep going when a thing is difficult. When I failed my first term test in mathematics and refused to open the book again, she did not scold me and she did not comfort me. She simply sat beside me every evening for a month with her own knitting, saying nothing, until sitting at that table became ordinary again. My marks improved slowly, but what changed permanently was my belief that a bad result is a starting point rather than a verdict. I have used that lesson far more often than anything I learnt in a classroom.
Why this answer works
- The topic sentence names the person and hints at something unexpected — that she was uneducated — which makes the reader want the next sentence.
- The paragraph has one idea: what this person taught the writer. It does not wander into her cooking, her health or her other grandchildren.
- The detail is concrete and specific: a failed mathematics test, a month of evenings, her knitting. Concrete detail is what separates a strong paragraph from a general one.
- The writing shows rather than tells. It never says she was patient; it describes her sitting there for a month, which is more convincing.
- The concluding sentence lifts the paragraph from an anecdote to a point, and does not merely repeat the opening.
Model 4 — Essay
Question: Should students be given homework every day? Give your opinion.
Almost every school day ends with the same instruction, and almost every student greets it with the same sigh. Homework is so ordinary a part of school life that it is rarely questioned at all. Yet the question is worth asking, because the amount of homework a student is given each day has a direct effect on both their learning and their health. In my view homework is valuable, but daily homework in every subject is not.
The argument for homework is a strong one. A lesson heard once is easily lost, and work done at home is often the only time a student practises alone, without a teacher standing by. In language learning this is particularly true: nobody has ever learnt to write English by watching someone else write it. Homework also builds the habit of working without supervision, which every student will need after school, whatever they go on to do.
The difficulty is not homework itself but its quantity. A student taking nine subjects, each teacher assigning work "for tomorrow", may face four hours of it after a seven-hour school day and a long journey home. At that point the purpose is defeated. Work done at eleven o'clock at night by an exhausted student teaches nothing; it is copied, rushed, or left undone, and the student learns only to feel guilty. Sleep, exercise and family time are not luxuries taken away from study — they are the conditions that make study possible.
There is also a fairness question that is easily forgotten. Not every home is a place where homework can be done. A student with electricity, a table and a quiet room is not competing on equal terms with one who shares a single room with five people, or who must help in a shop until closing time. Homework set carelessly widens a gap that school is supposed to narrow.
My conclusion is therefore not that homework should be abolished, but that it should be limited and coordinated. A reasonable amount, set by agreement between teachers rather than by each teacher separately, and designed to be finished in an hour, would give students the benefit of independent practice without the exhaustion and the unfairness. Homework should be a tool, not a habit; and like every tool, it works best when it is used deliberately.
Why this answer works
- The introduction narrows from a general observation to the specific question, and ends with a clear position. The position is genuinely arguable rather than there are both advantages and disadvantages.
- Each body paragraph has one job: paragraph two argues for homework, paragraph three against too much of it, paragraph four raises fairness.
- The essay answers the opposing view rather than ignoring it. This is what an argumentative essay is judged on.
- Concrete detail again does the work: nine subjects, four hours, eleven o'clock, a shared room. Compare how much weaker too much homework is bad for students would be.
- The conclusion does not repeat the introduction. It moves to a practical proposal and closes with a short, memorable sentence.
- The linking is varied — The argument for, The difficulty is, There is also, My conclusion is therefore — rather than Firstly, Secondly, Thirdly.
More models elsewhere on the site
Formal letter model
A full letter to an official, with notes.
Picture description model
A 100-word description with notes on its order.
Dialogue and speech models
A full dialogue and a speech, with notes on both.