Test 16 (b) — The Essay

The essay option names no audience. That freedom is the difficulty: with no newspaper or assembly to write for, students drift into a vague voice. Choose a position in the first sentence and hold it.

Many essay prompts are a comparison ("village or city?") or a for-and-against. Both want the same thing: two sides given real weight, then a decision. An essay that refuses to decide loses Content marks for depth.

Before you read any model below: copying prompt points verbatim awards 0 for Content, and the Zero-Content Gate then withholds every Language, Organisation and Mechanics mark. Copying zeros all 15.

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1. The Importance of Regular Exercise for Our Health

Past paper — 2023, option (b).

Include the following: the types of regular exercise · the advantages of regular exercise · steps that could be taken to make it popular among people

Model answer (201 words)

Exercise is the cheapest medicine available to us, and the one we are least willing to take.

It takes more forms than most people imagine. There is the walking and cycling built into an ordinary day. There are sports — cricket, netball, swimming — which add company to effort. There are quiet practices such as yoga, which suit those who dislike competition, and simple strength work needing no equipment at all.

Its advantages reach beyond the body. Regular activity strengthens the heart, controls weight and lowers the risk of diabetes, a disease now common among Sri Lankan adults. It improves sleep, and better sleep improves concentration — which matters to every student sitting an examination. It also lifts mood considerably; thirty minutes of movement relieves anxiety more reliably than an hour of worrying about it.

Making it popular requires removing excuses rather than repeating advice. Towns need safe footpaths and lit playgrounds, so that walking after work is pleasant and not dangerous. Schools should protect the sports period instead of surrendering it to revision. Workplaces can allow a short walking break.

Nobody begins exercising because they were told it was healthy. They begin because it became easy, and they continue because it became enjoyable.

What to steal

• The paradox opening. "Cheapest medicine… least willing to take" states the whole essay in one line.
• Types organised by kind of person — everyday, social, solitary — rather than a flat list. That is depth.
• Advantages that connect to the reader's real concern (sleep → concentration → exams).
• "Removing excuses rather than repeating advice" — the pivot that turns bullet three into an argument.

What NOT to steal

• The opening line. It is the single most borrowable sentence here, which is exactly why you should not.

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2. Spending time with animals

Past paper — 2024, option (b).

Include the following: types of animals — pets, animals in zoos and wild animals · importance of spending time with them · steps taken to protect them

Model answer (207 words)

We share this island with more animals than people, and how we treat them says something about us that we rarely say out loud.

They meet us in three very different settings. There are pets — the dog that waits at the gate, the cat that owns the kitchen. There are animals in zoos and sanctuaries, seen at a distance and behind a barrier. And there is our remarkable wildlife: elephants, leopards, and the birds that arrive each season without being invited.

Time spent with them matters more than it appears. A child who cares for a pet learns responsibility that no lesson can teach, because the animal's hunger does not wait for a convenient moment. Watching wild animals teaches patience and attention. There is evidence, too, that the company of animals lowers stress — something a student in examination year should not dismiss.

Protecting them has become urgent. Sri Lanka has expanded its sanctuary network and made cruelty a punishable offence, and electric fencing has reduced the human-elephant conflict in several districts. Much remains undone: habitat is still cleared, and stray populations grow faster than the clinics that could control them humanely.

An animal cannot argue its own case. That is precisely why ours must be made carefully.

What to steal

• A first line that is factual and unexpected — it earns the moral claim that follows.
• Three settings, three relationships. The bullet said "types"; giving each a different relationship to us is the depth mark.
• Admitting what is unfinished ("much remains undone") — balanced writing scores higher than praise.

What NOT to steal

• The closing couplet. Keep the structure — inability, therefore obligation — and change the words.

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3. Living in a village or living in a city?

Past paper — 2025, option (b). Select one and give reasons for your choice.

You may use: Village — natural environment, low cost of living, less noise and pollution; lack of facilities, employment and transport. City — access to education, health care, transport and technology; noise and pollution, high cost of living, traffic.

Model answer (198 words)

I would choose the village, and I would choose it knowing exactly what I was giving up.

The city's advantages are not in doubt. It holds the best-equipped schools, the hospitals with specialists, the universities, and work that simply does not exist elsewhere. Transport runs late, and every technology arrives there first. For a student with ambition and no family money, the city is often the only door.

What it charges for this is considerable. Rent consumes a salary that looked generous on paper. Air that visibly discolours a white collar by evening. Two hours a day surrendered to traffic, and neighbours whose names one never learns.

The village offers the opposite balance. Living costs little, the air is clean, and there is quiet enough to study in. A child is watched by a whole lane, not a locked door. Against that: the school may have no laboratory, the clinic no specialist, and the last bus may leave before the work does.

I choose the village because its deficiencies are being repaired — roads, electricity, and now network coverage — while the city's crowding grows worse each year. A village is becoming more liveable. A city is becoming less so.

What to steal

• Declaring the choice in sentence one, with a concession attached. The prompt asks you to select; select immediately.
• Steel-manning the side you reject. Giving the city a full, fair paragraph makes the final choice persuasive rather than sentimental.
• A decision resting on a trend, not a preference — "becoming more liveable" is an argument; "I like the quiet" is not.

What NOT to steal

• The final two sentences. The parallel structure is effective and now used.

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4. Are examinations the best way to measure a student's ability?

Unseen practice prompt.

Include the following: what examinations measure well · what they miss · alternatives that exist · your own conclusion

Model answer (208 words)

Examinations measure something real. The argument is about how much of a student that something is.

They do certain things well. An examination is the same for everyone on the same morning, which makes it fairer than a system depending on which teacher a child happened to get. It tests recall under pressure, and some of life genuinely works that way. It is also feasible to run for three hundred thousand candidates, which most alternatives are not.

What it misses is substantial. It cannot see whether a student works well with others, invents a solution nobody expected, or keeps going after failing. It rewards the quick over the thorough. And it measures one morning — a morning on which a candidate may be ill, or grieving, or simply unlucky in the questions.

Alternatives exist but each carries a cost. Coursework rewards patient work, and is difficult to authenticate. Oral assessment reveals understanding a written paper hides, and consumes enormous teacher time. Portfolios show growth over time and are hard to compare between schools.

My conclusion is that examinations are the least bad mechanism we have for sorting at scale — and that treating a mark as a complete description of a young person is a mistake nobody should make twice.

What to steal

• Naming the real question in the opening ("the argument is about how much").
• Costing every alternative. Listing alternatives is easy; saying why each is not already used is the depth.
• "Least bad" as a conclusion. A qualified verdict is stronger than a confident one when the evidence is mixed.

What NOT to steal

• "Least bad mechanism we have" — a good move, now spent.

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5. The advantages and disadvantages of online learning

Unseen practice prompt.

Include the following: what online learning offers · where it fails · who it suits and who it does not · a balanced conclusion

Model answer (202 words)

For two years online learning was not an experiment; it was the only school we had. That is long enough to judge it honestly.

Its advantages are real and were quickly forgotten once classrooms reopened. A recorded lesson can be replayed until it is understood, which no live teacher can offer thirty students at once. A child in a distant village can hear a Colombo teacher. Shy students who never raised a hand will type a question. And a day without travel returns two hours to a student.

Its failures were equally plain. Learning needs a reliable connection, a device not shared with two siblings, and a quiet corner — three things unevenly distributed across this country. Attention is harder to hold through a screen. Practical subjects suffered most: no video teaches a titration.

It suits the self-disciplined, the well-equipped and the older student. It fails the youngest, who need supervision, and the poorest, for whom every requirement is an obstacle.

The sensible conclusion is that online learning is an excellent supplement and a poor replacement. Recorded lessons alongside a real classroom give us the advantages without the exclusions — and that combination, not a choice between them, is what schools should be building.

What to steal

• Grounding in shared memory. "Not an experiment; the only school we had" gives authority without statistics.
• Naming who it fails. Moving from "it has disadvantages" to "it fails the youngest and the poorest" is a large jump in depth.
• Rejecting the either/or in the conclusion — often the most honest available answer.

What NOT to steal

• The titration example, now that you have read it.

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6. Is it better to have many friends or a few close ones?

Unseen practice prompt.

Include the following: what a wide circle gives you · what a close friendship gives you · how social media has changed this · your own view

Model answer (205 words)

A student with two hundred contacts and no one to telephone at midnight has a large circle and no friends. The distinction matters more than the number suggests.

A wide circle is genuinely useful. It brings variety, introductions, and the practice of getting along with people unlike yourself. It carries news and opportunity — the part-time work, the scholarship form, the class notes you missed. A person known to many is rarely stuck.

A close friendship gives what no circle can. It gives someone who notices you are unwell before you mention it, who can be told an embarrassing truth, and who will still be there when the group has moved on. Reciprocity of that depth takes years and cannot be hurried.

Social media has confused the two by giving them the same word. We now "have" hundreds of friends and see their holidays, which produces the sensation of closeness without any of the obligation. It is possible to feel surrounded and be entirely alone.

My own view is that the wide circle is a resource and the close friendship is a need. Collect the first if it interests you. Protect the second as though your health depended on it, because the evidence suggests it does.

What to steal

• The opening scenario. Two hundred contacts, nobody to call — the whole argument, dramatised.
• Different verbs for different claims — a circle "brings", a friendship "gives". Precision in verbs is Language-mark territory.
• A conclusion that separates categories (resource vs need) rather than choosing a winner.

What NOT to steal

• "Surrounded and entirely alone." Memorable, and now used.

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7. Should students have a say in how their school is run?

Unseen practice prompt.

Include the following: the case for student voice · the reasonable objections · where the line should be drawn · what a good system looks like

Model answer (207 words)

Students are the only people in a school who experience all of it, every day, and they are usually the last to be asked about any of it.

The case for listening is practical rather than sentimental. Students know which corridor floods, which timetable slot wastes an hour, and which rule is being ignored by everyone including the staff who wrote it. A student council that is genuinely consulted also teaches governance by practice — how to argue a case, count a vote, and accept losing one.

The objections deserve a fair hearing. Fifteen-year-olds do not have the experience to set a curriculum or manage a budget. A council can be captured by the confident few. And a school that consults on everything decides nothing.

So the line should fall between operation and direction. Students should have real authority over what belongs to student life — clubs, events, the canteen, the use of common spaces — and a consulted voice, not a vote, on timetabling, facilities and discipline policy.

A good system is small and honest: an elected council, a named teacher who must meet it, a published agenda, and a written answer to every proposal — including the refusals, with reasons. Being told no, and why, is itself an education.

What to steal

• Establishing standing before arguing ("the only people who experience all of it").
• Giving objections their strongest form. "A school that consults on everything decides nothing" is a real concession, not a straw man.
• Drawing an explicit line (operation vs direction). Balanced essays often fail by never resolving; this one resolves.

What NOT to steal

• The final sentence — a strong close, and now a used one.

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8. Money cannot buy happiness — do you agree?

Unseen practice prompt.

Include the following: where the saying is true · where it is false · what the evidence suggests · your position

Model answer (207 words)

The saying is usually repeated by people who have enough money, which is worth noticing before agreeing with it.

It is true in an important way. Beyond what a family needs, additional income buys surprisingly little contentment. A larger house becomes ordinary within a month. Wealth cannot buy the friendship of someone who does not like you, cannot restore health once it is lost, and cannot make an unhappy family a happy one.

It is false in a way that is easy to forget from a comfortable chair. Money buys the removal of fear. It buys medicine before the illness becomes serious, a roof that holds in the monsoon, and school fees that do not have to be weighed against food. A parent who knows the month's expenses are covered sleeps differently from one who does not.

What the evidence suggests is that the two are both true at different points. Up to the level of security, money and wellbeing rise together, and sharply. Past it, the line flattens almost to nothing.

My position is that money cannot buy happiness but it can buy the absence of a particular misery — and for most families in this country, that is the part of the question that actually matters.

What to steal

• Interrogating the premise itself. Noticing who repeats the saying reframes the whole essay.
• The "true here, false there" structure — the cleanest way to handle a prompt that invites simple agreement.
• A conclusion that narrows to the case that matters locally.

What NOT to steal

• "Absence of a particular misery." Find your own formulation.

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9. Should every student learn to cook?

Unseen practice prompt.

Include the following: why it is a useful skill · what is lost when it is not taught · objections to adding it to school · a realistic proposal

Model answer (208 words)

Every student will eat three times a day for the rest of their life. Very few will use trigonometry as often, and only one of the two is compulsory.

Cooking is useful in ways that compound. It is markedly cheaper than buying prepared food, which matters most to the students who can least afford it. It gives direct control over nutrition at an age when diet is being set for decades. And it is one of the few skills that can be offered to others — a person who can cook is never useless in a household.

What is lost without it is more than convenience. A generation that cannot cook is dependent on packaged food, whose salt and sugar content is chosen by someone else entirely. Family recipes stop being passed down and are simply forgotten.

The objections are fair. The timetable is already full, kitchens cost money, and some argue it is properly taught at home — though "at home" now often means a household where every adult works.

A feasible proposal is modest: one practical period a fortnight, six dishes a year, taught in an ordinary classroom with a single gas ring. Not a new subject. Twelve lessons, and a student leaves school able to feed themselves.

What to steal

• The comparison opening. Setting cooking against trigonometry makes the point without stating it.
• "Useful in ways that compound" — a promise the paragraph then keeps.
• Ending with a costed, specific proposal. "Twelve lessons and one gas ring" is far harder to dismiss than "schools should teach cooking".

What NOT to steal

• The trigonometry comparison. It works once.

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10. The advantages and disadvantages of living far from your school

Unseen practice prompt.

Include the following: the difficulties of a long journey · any advantages · the effect on study · how the difficulties can be reduced

Model answer (209 words)

A student who travels ninety minutes each way spends three hours a day getting an education before any learning begins.

The difficulties are the obvious ones, and they accumulate. Waking before five leaves a persistent tiredness that no weekend repairs. Bus fares take a real share of a modest household budget. Any club or practice held after school is simply unavailable, because the last bus does not wait. Rain turns a difficult journey into an impossible one.

There are advantages, and they are worth naming honestly. A long journey is reading time nobody interrupts. Students who travel learn independence early and navigate a city that classmates never leave. And a school worth travelling to is usually a school worth attending.

The effect on study is mixed rather than simply bad. Homework gets done on a bus or not at all. But the tiredness is real, and tiredness undoes revision: what is learned before a short night is largely lost by morning.

The difficulties can be reduced. Schools can place clubs at lunchtime instead of after the last bell. Shared transport cuts both cost and waiting. And a student can convert the journey deliberately — vocabulary cards outward, reading homeward — so that the three hours are spent rather than merely endured.

What to steal

• Opening with the arithmetic. Three hours a day, stated plainly, is more forceful than "a long journey is difficult".
• Finding genuine advantages. The prompt asks for them; inventing weak ones costs Content marks, so look for real ones.
• "Spent rather than merely endured" as a closing idea — reframing without denying the difficulty.

What NOT to steal

• The vocabulary-cards detail, now that it is on this page.