Important Notice for Cert III Students

This post is only for my certivicate III students who come to AMES in my evening class. You will have to do a second writing test this week. You will have to write 300 words. 299 words are not enough. You will write a narrative. A narrative is an even that happened to you or a situation you have been in. It is like a simple story that you tell.

There are different things you can write about. I will give you some ideas to think about:

• an exciting/unusual event at work (The day you got your driving licence)
• a dangerous encounter (The day when a robber entered your house)
• a difficult experience (When you lost your train ticket and got a fine)
• a natural disaster (The day when the river water flooded your city)
• a difficult childhood experience (An annoying boy in your class)
• an imaginary event (The day you became a film star at Holywood)

I want you to tell me when and where the event took place. I also want you to use the past simple tense in your writing. I want you to use adjectives like (nice - beautiful - sunny - wonderful - dangerous). I also expect you to produce good handwriting so I don't need to go and get my eyes tested after reading your test. You will have to write more than one paragraph. Of course I expect you to make some small grammar mistakes. Very big grammar mistakes will affect your test of course.

There are many transitional words and phrases you can use.

First of all ...................
in addition to that, .............
after that .................
later on ................
From my point of view ............
I would have thought that = I think that ........
in the end ..................

You will have to use at least one of these words:
because, so, hence

This test will tell you how good your English is and if you need to do some extra work on your own at home. It is a good idea to ask some "Wh" questions to get more ideas of things to write about.
Think of a bank robbery that you witnessed one day.

What is the title of your text?   (A Robbery at a Bank )
Whre did the event take place?
What was the weather like?
Why were you there?
What time of the day?
What were you doing?
What were you wearing?
What other people were involved?
What were the people doing at the place?
How did you react to the situation? What did you do?
How did you feel when the event was taking place?
How did the event end?
What did you learn from the experience?

Here is a sample of the writing:

The Day I Witnessed a Bank Robbery

Last October I went to the Commonwealth Bank in Box Hill to withdraw some money. I needed the money to buy some food for my family. It was a sunny day and there was no rain at all. I felt happy because I had three days off work and wanted to spend them with my family.   ............

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I want you to write simple sentences. If you need any help in class, ask me before you start. Go to Google and search "Writing a narrative" and see how much reading you can do. Good luck.