Clodagh Havel

There are discursive essays, there's personal essays, there's short stories, there is speeches.

You find the genre that suits you best.

And that's an individual decision.

What comes to you, choose that well.

It is also a comprehension.

Question A is comprehension.

It's about being able to read between the lines what's really being said.

That's the skill there.

Three questions on that.

Functional writing is question B. And that is, I always tell the students, that is the question that you're going to take out into life.

It's the functional use of our language.

You'll use it in emails, blogs, podcasts.

You know, it's the English of life long after you've finished studying English and then the composition.

So it's two hours 50.

You can actually walk in off the street and do paper one, have a go at it.

You know, it is something where...

People enjoy the freedom that it offers because paper two is much more curtailed.

But that's what it is.

It is a language paper.

It's the power of your ability to express yourself within the confines of your own knowledge, current affairs, your own knowledge of yourself, how you feel about things.