pt3 english email essay example

Decoding Essay writing for PT3 English 2021

7 minutes to read

01. Rule of Thumb to Learn and Master PT3 Writing Paper
02. Comparison on PT3 Writing Papers Format
03. How to Answer PT3 Writing Paper Part 1
04. How to Answer PT3 Writing Paper Part 2
05. PT3 Essay Writing Tips

PT3 (Form Three Assessment) is an assessment of students' academic achievement at the lower secondary education level from Form 1 to Form 3. There are several examinations to be done by PT3 candidates including specialized work, oral speaking test, listening test and written test.

Writing can improve the learning abilities of students. This is necessary in schools and colleges. Students should not feel burdened at writing work and must feel that this is so ‘kacang’ or easy to do. It can be done with little pain; maybe a little.

“No hustle, No gain”

I will guide you more as you read on. You can also read more on PT3 2021 Format.

Rule of Thumb to Learn and Master PT3 Writing Paper

The first rule of thumb is to understand communicative language teaching (CLT) approach. This can be applied by both teachers and parents. How to do this?

Learning through English communication – to allow students to have a natural conversation and involved in real communication. Through time, students won’t have any trouble expressing themselves in English.

Communication is more prominent compared to linguistic rules – Everything is good as long as the student is able to create a conversation even though they are using broken English.

The second rule of thumb is to know that it's okay to make a few mistakes. The journey to gain knowledge may not be a straight road and might be a bit bumpy. Therefore, making a little slip can be acceptable as long as the students are able to convey the message through communication.

Just remember to write and converse in ‘Natural English’ .

Comparison on PT3 Writing Papers Format

Starting from 2019, a new form of assessment format was announced by The Examination Board of the Ministry of Education Malaysia for form 3 KSSM English. There was quite a few changes going on and it also brings to attention on how the writing paper will differ from the previous years.

I have listed the similarities and the differences between the older writing format and the newer one in terms of the questions and also the marking below.

SIMILARITIES

How to Answer PT3 Writing Paper Part 1

Look at the following email and write a reply to Alia giving some advice, in about 80 words.

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I’m looking forward to the next school holiday.

I would like to go travelling or take extra classes for my upcoming PT3 examination – or maybe something else?

What should I do?

Let me know what you think!

So, how should you answer?

The first question in part 1 is to write a short message or reply to an e-mail or of the same sort. As a teacher myself, we usually taught students to always bid greetings. Well, it is in our Malaysian cultures too, right?

However, in the latest format, you can just SKIP THE GREETINGS; write it straight to the point! Let’s go back to the previous section where I told you to use English as naturally as possible.

Just imagining you are directly replying to her in the real world or in person. Just start responding by explaining why she should do this and not doing the other or you can also suggest a new idea. End your message with a sweet ending. Remember to keep your reply short but compact.

For example,

Hi, I think you should spend your time traveling with your family during the school holiday. This is the time for you to rest your mind and body as you cannot be stressed out before sitting on your examination. Plus, you can always study while traveling too. You have online tutors, right? So, there should not be any problem for you to kill two birds with one stone. I know how much you would like to excel in your studies. Hope this helps.

Easy and simple right? You do not need to write any greetings anymore. Even the mark weightage for this simple 80 words short sentences is 20 marks!

Some students asked me, do you need to use bombastic words, any jargon or idioms? Yes, you can my dear. But you do not need to use it throughout your essay.

Remember, keep your writing as simple as possible and use natural words. Besides, you can reduce your mistakes too.

I have written about PT3's latest marking scheme too. Check it out.

How to Answer PT3 Writing Paper Part 2

For the second part of the writing paper, you’ll need to write a 120 words essay on any general topics. We can say that part two are almost similar to guided writing.

Look at the sample questions.

In a tennis club, you have been talking about the next inter-school tournament.

In about 120 words, write an essay about the preparations needed for the tournament.

You may use the notes below to help you.

When is the tournament?

Where is the venue?
Who can be the club representative?
Why should the tennis club participate?
How to register for the tournament?
What is the other preparation needed?

Write your essay

This part is easier compared to the previous part in this section. Here, the topic is general and there is no format needed. All the points are straight forward too. Therefore, remember to keep things simple.

There are 6 notes given to help you construct your essay. Use it! For each bullet, try to write at least 3 short sentences. Just about 7 words.

7 words x 3 sentences x 6 bullets = 122 words!

Cool right?

Let me show you how 7 words x 3 sentences can be constructed from the notes given above.

The Inter-school Tennis Tournament will be held on May 16, 2021. This is in conjunction with the Teacher's Day Celebration. Every player is expected to arrive at 8 am.

You can see from the sample answer that each note needs to have at least 3 sentences to make up 1 paragraph. You only need to write about 120 words for each essay.

PT3 Essay Writing Tips

There are several rules to remember when answering your essay questions.

Write your PT3 Essay accordingly to the questions.

DO NOT OVERWRITE your essay. You should minimize the words you use in each sentence. Remember the more sentences you write, the higher the chances of mistakes. Simple is better so you can reduce the chances of losing more marks.

Write your PT3 Essay with an easy and understandable answer

You need to make sure what you write can be understood by the examiner. With this said, you need to be extra careful in your sentence construction. Pay attention to your grammar, especially the tenses. Make sure it is consistent.

Write your PT3 Essay with a neat Handwriting

This is by most, a crucial part in writing an essay. Examiners will be pleased if you have a neat handwriting. It is okay if your handwriting is bad but make sure it is neat. Do not let your answer sheet look like scraps paper! This is very important, not only for the examiner, but also for yourself to easily spot your spelling mistakes.

Write your PT3 Essay naturally and straightforward

For the latest PT3 format, you just need to answer as natural as possible. This means, you should use simple words to construct your sentences. Your answer should be straight forward. You don't need to beat around the bush with flowery wordings and sentences like the previous format.

You can use jargon or complicated words but not too much. This is to minimize the risk of misperception from the marker and the chances that you use it wrongly is very high too.

Learn from the expert for PT3 Essay Writing

It might be hard for you to write in English even though you have good English communication skills. This happens even to the English native speaker too. You can always find help from experts.

Get help from your teacher. They are surely more than happy to assist you. Besides, they are the best expert you can find near you as the 2021 PT3 Latest Marking Scheme will be marked internally. Therefore, you should start to do good to your teachers!

You can take a look at PT3 past year questions to understand more on the type of questions that might come out. Everything from the latest format, essay writing and past year questions are compiled in the Complete Guide to PT3 English for you to check out.

You can also contact Superprof essay writing experts. All of them have excellent track of experience and high records at providing guidance to students for over a decade!

“ An investment in knowledge, pays the best Interest” -Ben Franklin

Do not be scared of examinations. Failing is the best teacher in life. Remember, none of the successful people in the world had an easy life. They fall, they stand up again and again. When they crumble, they keep on rising. When they are hurt, they always patch themselves up and keep moving forward.

I wish you all the best!

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Alia Jamaludin

Alia Jamaludin is known as a passionate environmentalist and animal lover. By being both educator and writer, she can reach out her positive thought to almost every being on this planet.

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Thank for so much. This is what I really want to find

We’re super glad that this article has helped you

this is veerrrryyyy helpful thank-you thank-you thank-you!!!

This article was very helpful! It is simple and direct but it gave me everything I need for my students!

I’m glad you found it helpful!

May I know is there only email or short message in writing paper Part 1 ?

hi Ann, this is a very informative material especially for English tutor like me. Truly appreciate your guidance

PT3ENGLISH.com

For teachers and students, what you need to know about the new pt3 writing paper [2019].

New format new format new format!

Yes Months ago KPM released the new format and everyone is asking me. HOW?

In this post, we try to answer all your questions. hopefully it helps make teaching easier for you parents and teachers out there.

DISCLAIMER:

SINCE THERE’S NO OFFICIAL GUIDELINE FROM THE KPM YET, WHAT I SHARE IS BASED ON WHAT I HAVE READ AND WHAT I LEARNED. IT MIGHT NOT BE 100% ACCURATE BUT IT CAN SERVE AS A REFERENCE IF YOU WISH.

Old Writing Paper VS New Writing Paper

SIMILARITIES

DIFFERENCES

HOW TO ANSWER THE NEW WRITING PAPERS?????

Rule of thumb 1: understand what is clt (communicative language teaching) approach.

If you are a teacher, you might just need a little bit of flashback , then you will know the idea of it. I am not going to go into how the famous linguists started all this, but if you’re interested, you can go ahead and read more about it. THE NEW FORMATS BASE A LOT ON THE IDEA OF CLT. (please correct me if I’m wrong)

But, if you’re a parent, I’ll give you a simple idea about this approach and how you can help guide your children in their learning.

‘NATURAL’

Every answer should reflect ‘natural English’. This is a very vague idea because what is considered natural and what is not can be subjective. Especially when the situation now is that we still do not have a written guide.

I’ll give you more examples as you read on…

RULE OF THUMB 2: It’s Okay to Have Some Slips

One thing teachers have to get used to is that, we should be okay with little slips here and there. Not that we want to encourage students to do them, but we should remind ourselves to focus on the ‘communication’

“Did the student successfully convey the message?”

if yes, why punish so bad?

And because I do not want students think it’s okay to make certain mistakes, I shall not give any examples here. Rule of thumb is, give the best form of English you know.

HOW TO ANSWER PART 1

1. Go Sraight To The Point

Previously, many teachers, even I am guilty of this.

We ask students to start with greetings.

“Hi, how are you? I hope you are fine. I am fine here.”

That is considered BAD in the new format. Why? Because it’s NOT NATURAL. Think about this,

A: “What are you going to do this weekends?”

B: “Hey, how are you? Im good. By the way, I am planning to go to the library this Saturday.”

B: “I am thinking to go to the library this Saturday.”

Which is more natural in your daily life? There you go. Remember, natural language wins.

So in the new format we want to take away all the not so natural greetings and go straight to the point.

That’s how we all should respond to part 1.

2. Explain All the Good Things and Some of the Bad Things

One way to help students elaborate is to get them to think about the good things about their choice and the bad things about what they have rejected.

For example, from the question, lets choose cooking.

You already have 62 words – only by listing down all the good things about your choice of hobby.

What if the students don’t have so many ideas?

Then, write some negative things about the others

3. A Short and Sweet Ending

Again, write as natural as you can.

HOW TO ANSWER PART 2

1. No more format (Maybe?)

This looks like the new direction but again I can’t tell for sure. Most likely, no format.

2. Use the guide questions. (WH-questions)

This sounds like a cliche, but if you learn to build sentences around WH-questions, you should be able to build a solid form 3 level essay. Just imagine building 3 sentences for each question, how many words can you get from there?

3. A freer topic means more room to focus on the language.

The new question seems to be giving more room for students’ own idea, you can use the opportunity to focus on things that your students can relate to, and get them to write. For example, you no longer ask them to write about Hari Raya, get them to write about the celebration that they celebrate i.e: Christmas, Chinese New Year, Kaamatan, Deepavali, etc. This way, students with all kinds of background can relate and can spend more time on building the language and fixing them.

4. Keep thing Short and Simple

I don’t see why you need to write so looooooongggg, thinking you can get more marks from longer text. If the question asks for about 120 words, I think getting to 150 words is great already.

Always, for weaker students, keep sentences short and simples, but one thing for sure for the A students to the struggling students. Everyone should aim for one thing

Have MEANING in what you write:

You’re telling something in response to the questions,
Readers get something from the answers

That’s about it. Comment and let me know what you think about the new format! Don’t forget to check out our latest E-package. We write everything based on the latest format. Hit us up on FB if you have more questions!

23 thoughts on “ What you need to know about the new PT3 WRITING PAPER [2019] ”

Regarding to part 2,do you have to write the essay like telling a story (our feelings,witnessed things and such?) Please do help me

it depends on the questions, if it’s not a story you don’t need to write those. Do you have a sample question that I can take a look at?

i guess not anymore. the question is just like the above

thank you!really helpful and i really apreciated it!

Hai… What about HOTS? How can we tell if the students had applied HOTS in their writing according to the marking scheme? Is there a proper marking c scheme where HOTS can be embedded in it?

While there’s no special mention of HOTs in the scheme given, I believe when a student successfully applies HOTs in their writing, it will show a great difference in their ‘content’ , and that’s where we can award them according. What do you think?

Is it compulsory to write at least 120 words for notes expansion or can the pupils write lesser than 120 words?

Hi Nassernawawi,

if the question asks for around 120, we should at least have around 120 words. 🙂

Hi, good day. Is it possible for you to share the marking scheme ? Kindly explain on it, thx

Should i put at least 2 bombastic words in an essay or more?

I’d say use the words that you feel most suitable with the meaning you want to convey.

What kind of format will be out for part 2? currently, i’m teaching my students about recount, report, speech, article and informal letter.

This is the first time that I come across with your website. Your posts are really helpful, I would comment. My question is, how do teachers mark both the essays, I mean the mark distribution? (e.g. 10m for language and 10m for content….)

Thanks in advance.

Thanks… Pray for me tomorrow.. I hope the english test are going to be easy

Thank you, and now i know how to answer the format of the english paper

thank you for helping and guiding us…

Good now I know how to score with flying colours

I love it. Now I am sure that I am going to get A in English Paper.

terima kasih tinggal membantu kami

thank u very much i really appreciate it now i understand everything hope i got A next exam

Good for me,thank youu

Hi.. what if students exceeded the 120 word count? will they be penalize ?

As far as I know, they will not be penalised for that