Скачать или смотреть PSLE Stimulus-Based Conversation | Stop Doing These 3 Things in Your Ending (Conclusion)

Hi everyone! In this video, we will be looking at the E component, which is Ending, of our R-A-S-E strategy.

While it may seem like the easiest component, since it is often the shortest, many students do struggle with concluding their answers satisfactorily. Hence, I will be sharing with you three mistakes you should learn to avoid if you wish to craft a nice conclusion for your oral answers.

First, do not conclude your oral answer on an irrelevant note that does not link back to the question. Sometimes, students may provide brilliant ideas and developed stories to answer the oral question, but they present a conclusion that is completely unrelated to what the question is asking for! Let’s take a look at the following example by Student Jo:

Oral question: Do you help out with household chores at home?

Answer:

R + A: Yes, I do help out with household chores at home.

First and foremost, I make sure to make my own bed every morning. To make the bed, I fold up my blanket and arrange my soft toys neatly.

In addition, I would help my parents to sweep the floor every weekend. Usually, I would sweep the floor using a vacuum cleaner, because it is convenient and easy to use. I enjoy sweeping the floor because I can exercise while doing so!

Last but not least, I would help to water the plants every day with a watering can. Since my mother loves our plants dearly, I always make sure to water them with care and diligence.

S: Once, I was out playing with my friends the entire day and totally forgot about watering the plants. By the time I reached home, the plants looked dry and dehydrated. When my mother came home and saw what had happened, she was enraged. Seeing her incensed expression, I quickly tried to salvage the plants. Thankfully, the plants recovered and regained their bright colours in no time.

E: In conclusion, I learnt that I should not be out playing with my friends the entire day.

As we can see from the example, Student Jo’s Ending does not link back to the points raised in her Response. Furthermore, it does not have any relevance to the oral question at all. The question seeks to understand Student Jo’s experience with household chores and not her opinion on playing with friends all day.

Secondly, do not merely repeat the oral question in your conclusion. The purpose of a conclusion is for you to signal the end of your answer, restate your main points and leave a positive impression on your examiners. Hence, by merely repeating the oral question, you are wasting your final chance to impress your examiners and clinch a few more marks that could bump up your oral grade. Instead of reiterating the oral question, you should consider these steps:

Restate your response and link back to the oral question
Give a final reflection, advice or recommendation — an example of an advice for the oral question we looked at could be: I would advise children to help out with some simple and safe household chores that they find manageable.

Last but not least, do not introduce brand new points in your conclusion. More than halfway through answering the question, some students may realise that they have forgotten to talk about certain points in their Response. As a result, they may try to introduce the new ideas in the conclusion instead. Worse still, they may go on and on with elaborating on the new points. This is extremely confusing to the listeners, and it may also dilute the focus on the previous points that they have made.

Taking all three common mistakes into consideration, this would be a good Ending to the oral question we went through:

E: In conclusion, these are some chores that I help out with at home, and I think they are fairly easy to do. Hence, I feel that it is important for me to be responsible in carrying out these household chores diligently, so that I can lessen my parents’ load and stress.

Before you go, here are a few more tips for you to take note of when it comes to concluding your oral answers.

1) Students often forget about the oral question by the time they conclude. As such, they may unintentionally come up with a conclusion that is totally irrelevant to the question. Hence, do be more mindful and try to remember the question for as long as you are answering it.

2) Never end off your conclusion with informal fillers like “so ya” and “that’s it”. In fact, you should not end off any sentences with these informal phrases at all.

3) Some students wonder when they should smile when they are answering an oral question. My suggestion?

All in all, I have talked about a few things that you should keep a lookout for if you would like to come up with a good conclusion for your oral answers. I hope you find these tips useful and will keep them in mind for your oral examination. Have fun learning!