PRACTICAL APPROACH TO PAST QUESTIONS (2)

By Hassan Abdulbaqi

 

 You were an eye witness to an incident in which a crowd of angry traders beat a suspected thief to death. Write a letter to the Divisional Police Officer in your area giving an account of what happened.

PRACTICAL APPROACH

Here, you are doing two things-a narrative essay in a formal letter. This is because you shall be narrating an incident to the Divisional Police Officer in form of a letter. You are also to narrate the incident as if you were there, as the word “eye witness” suggests. Don’t also forget to reflect on words like “crowd of angry traders” and “suspected thief”. That is, something must have made them so angry that had made them beat him to death and “suspected thief” means that there was no real proof to show that the thief actually stole.

Since it is a formal letter, it must contain some important features. First is the writer’s address which is followed by a date at the right corner of the beginning of your essay.

No. 5 Market Road,

Igbokoda,

Ondo state.

11th November, 2018.

 

After this, you must write the recipient’s designation in the left corner and follow it with the address. See:

The Divisional Police Officer, – this is the designation, i.e the title of the recipient

Igbokoda Police Station,          -this is the address, remember that the D.P.O is in “your area” as the question dictates,

Igbokoda,

Ondo State.

Note: The whole address must not be written in capital letters.

Dear Sir/Madam, (as the case maybe)

Then you write the topic of your essay, read SUITABLE TITLE here on how to form suitable titles.

Don’t forget that in formal letters, you end the body of your letter with Yours faithfully, and not Yours sincerely which is for informal letter. Also note that the first letter in “Yours” is capital while “faithfully” is preceded with a small letter. Then your signature and finally, your full name (i.e your surname and name).

Yours faithfully,

Signature

Hassan Abdulbaqi

That’s for getting good marks under Organization, you’ll surely get good marks here too, if your paragraphs are well-developed and properly linked.

Now back to the body of your letter, your language must be formal. Employ the use of all the types of sentences. You may want to show the exact ways the traders spoke and the way they react to issues, in order to make it known that they are illiterates or uncultured, you should explain these as you write them in your letters. Your words may carry emotions while describing the incident or the carelessness of the policemen in handling the issue but it must not be abusive.

Don’t forget to cross check your work for grammatical mistakes, spelling mistakes and punctuation marks.

You can also read about the length of your essays , THE BIG FOUR IN SSCE ENGLISH ESSAYS and Four Tips for Scoring High in Your SSCE English before trying your hand on this question. Get ready now!