These are just suggestions. I don’t know if they would work. But, if people have taken the writing test before, they might be able to reflect on that experience to judge if these might help. Structure is important, I think. I’ve always assumed it to be. And I am assuming that a basic three paragraph structure would work. 1) Thesis (paraphrase the prompt and provide a short response) 2) Response (provide why with some supporting justification) 3) Summary (repeat the thesis and the response in short form) I remember 600 total words or so is the expectation? I definitely realize that the above may not be the best advice. Going to study.com, 240tutoring.com, the CTC CBEST prep materials, or pretty much any CBEST prep book is going to give better advice on structure. Can you remember any of the writing prompts? If so, try writing to those using a grammar/spell checking editor such as MS Word. I’ve never used Grammarly (https://www.grammarly.com/), but that might also be a possibility. If you have taken the test a few times, can you detect patterns in the questions so you could put together workable paragraph and/or sentence frames? Those are probably the most obvious suggestions. Here is another less obvious possibility for consideration. I am a bad speller. I’m more of a math type, so that’s my excuse. In any case, to deal with that, I have been known to use test questions to act as a spelling dictionary. (I just misspelled “dictionary”. Luckily, MS Word caught it.) Anyway, I know you can take the reading and writing tests at the same time. I don’t remember if you can skip back and forth between tests. But if you take the reading and writing tests together, you can spend time going through the reading test, picking out words that you have trouble remembering how to spell. You might be able to select sentence frames as well. Note these down for use in the writing test. I’m pretty sure that, if you have passed the reading test with a score satisfactory to you before that, whatever score you get on subsequent reading tests will not hurt. In other words, I don’t think you have to worry about spending time on actually passing the reading test to use it as a language guide for the writing test. Check the rules of testing before taking any advice.
I passed the writing exam. It was unbelievable. I failed many times before and I usually had usage, structure, and conventions problems. In my experience, the best way to enhance these skills is by practicing and finding a tutor to help you. I had a tutor twice per week, and I wrote six essays per week. Only one month, I passed it. I am so happy. Thank you to everyone who provides much great information.
