Don’t Bore Your Examiner

“Anyone else get exhausted grading essays and writing assignments?” asks a Reddit user in the r/Professors sub. “I will be grading for what feels like several hours and then I look at how many I have left, and I just feel this sense of dread. lol It gets so repetitive, boring, and monotonous. Is it just me?”

Those who responded to the post confessed that they were in the same boat.

Most essay markers are bored to death, and students would do well to remember this, for therein lies one secret to getting high marks: when tackling an essay topic, instead of being a bore, do something different, and do it well. 

What follows is an example of my attempt to do something different, and do it well.

This is a GCSE English transactional writing topic I worked on with a student earlier this week:

According to your PE teacher, ‘Swimming is the very best form of exercise.’ You have been asked to prepare a talk for your classmates in which you give your views about swimming.

The topic is so boring, and it is only natural for students to respond by writing a boring speech. When I produced my piece, however, I decided to spice up my introduction with a juicy anecdote:

The story I’m about to tell you will make you puke. It really did take place in real life, unfortunately.

In a girls’ secondary school in Hong Kong, many students hated swimming enough to develop the perfect excuse for being exempted from the weekly compulsory swimming session: all they had to do was claim they were having their period. Their sports teacher eventually became suspicious that a large proportion of these claims were false, so she began demanding them to pull down their pants in front of her as proof.

The sport teacher’ strategy was not only a grievous violation of her students’ privacy. It is also misguided, for it would only have the effect of intensifying their hatred of swimming. Think of the many students who swear never to touch the piano again after being forced to take their Grade 8 exams. While swearing off piano won’t hurt young people, swearing off physical activity in general will hurt their long term health.

If my introduction were the opening of a real exam script, I’m pretty confident that I would succeed in jolting my half-asleep marker back to a conscious state. I would probably be duly rewarded with the highest grade as well.