2021 PSLE English Composition Question – A Promise

Many students learn from their teachers that their stories should have a problem or conflict. While this isn’t always necessary, it can be important, especially in stories about a promise, as suggested by the 2021 PSLE English Composition question. Introducing a challenge for the main character to overcome feels like a natural part of storytelling.

Let’s break down the details of the question!

PSLE 2021

English Language

Paper 1 (Writing)

Part 2: Continuous Writing (40 marks)

Write a composition of at least 150 words about a promise.

The pictures are provided to help you think about this topic.

Your composition should be based on one or more of these pictures.

Consider the following points when you plan your composition:

What was the promise?
Was the promise kept?

You may use the points in any order and include other relevant points as well.

Trying to write a coherent and engaging story within the time limit of an examination is no easy task!

In this article, we help students organise their thinking process by breaking down the task into simple-to-follow steps.

Step One: Understand the topic

What does the word promise mean?

Definition: a declaration or assurance that one will do something or that a particular thing will happen

For this composition, it is more prudent to write a story about “keeping a promise” instead of “breaking a promise”.

Step Two: Choose your picture(s)

Before choosing which picture(s) to base your story on, make sure to study each one in detail. Let’s think about what each picture is about and examine how easy or difficult it is to relate it to the topic. We do this by asking ourselves pertinent questions about how each picture might fit in a story.

Girl writing

What is the girl writing?
Is what she is writing related to her keeping a promise?
Where/when is this taking place?

Watch

Whose watch is this?
Is the time shown on the watch significant to the plot?

Hamburger

How is the hamburger relevant to the keeping of a promise?
What happened to the hamburger in the end?

Step Three: Plan your composition

Using more than one picture does not guarantee a higher mark, so the easiest option is to simply pick one picture and focus on building a story around that picture. For the sake of flexing your creative muscles, let’s brainstorm possible plots using the four-part story structure (INTRODUCTION-RISING ACTION-CLIMAX-CONCLUSION) based on various picture combos.

Tip: For the story to be engaging, the protagonist should have to overcome at least one obstacle in order to fulfil his or her promise.

Possible plots

Chosen picture: Hamburger

Chosen picture: Girl writing + Hamburger

Chosen picture: Girl writing + Watch

The watch and hamburger are used differently in each example.

In the first example, the hamburger is what stops the main character from keeping their promise. In the second example, the hamburger is a reward for keeping the promise.

The watch in the second example reminds the character of the deadline to fulfill their promise, while in the third example, the watch is a reward for completing the promise.

Both the hamburger and the watch serve as rewards in the second and third examples, but since a watch usually costs more than a hamburger, the task in the third example is likely more difficult than in the second.

Step Four: Write your composition

While we should be as descriptive in our writing as we can throughout our composition, we need to pay particular attention to

(a) making sure that the keywords used in the question are repeated in one form or another in the composition. Typically, it makes the most sense to do this at the introduction and/or conclusion of the story.

(b) describing the chosen picture(s) in sufficient detail. As a rule of thumb, dedicate at least three sentences in your story to describe the picture in order to show the role it plays in the plot of your story.

If you have found this planning framework useful, click the like and share buttons below.

Need help in boosting your child’s composition scores?

Sign up for The Thinking Writer programme. In this creative writing and composition writing class, we teach students to think before they write!

Our experienced English teachers will show them how they can put their own stamp of creativity on their compositions while enjoying the writing process.

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